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Guided Meditation: Fire Element

Good morning, friends. Welcome again to the morning meditation and dharma talk. I'm happy to be having another day with you. If you've been following along, you probably have surmised that I'm going to talk about the fire element today, and we'll do a guided meditation with that.

I wanted to start by naming, especially sitting here at this moment in time at the end of this summer, the complexity of our relationship with the elements. It's not all roses, so to speak. We're very aware of the fire element, with the fires that have been burning, with the amount of smoke, even if you're not nearby. Probably many of us know—I do—people whose houses have burned, and the vast swathes of forest. And to acknowledge this: these elements are powerful. The earth shakes, the waters flood, the fires burn.

When we stand in the face of these elements and see the power of them, a huge sense of awe comes through us. It's interesting having the enormity of the elements, the power of them, and to recognize that these same elements flow through us. We are not separate from that, and a certain portion of that power is flowing through us as well. We're in conversation with that.

This is even more evident when we feel into climate change and the way all the elements are being amplified. We, as human beings, are very much in relationship with that. We are an expression of the elements, and we are affecting the elements.

Whether we sense it on a very grand scale—standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and looking in and seeing the power of water and earth and the physical result of that—or whether you taste a summer tomato and feel the sun and the earth in it, the elements are expressing themselves all around us in these subtle and powerful ways.

As we touch in and practice with the elements, we're being invited into this full complexity, from the very subtle sensations in our body to the grand expressions that are around us.

I will say for myself that I live where I do in the desert in Utah partially because I really enjoy the dramatic expression of the elements: the fiery sun and the earth rising up dramatically, and the intensity of the wind and the storms when they come. There is a potency and aliveness when we meet that rawness of the elements, and it can be terrifying as well. That word "awe" includes both of those. So I want to name that as we move into practicing with the fire element: the complexity and the breadth of the experience that we have with them.

So please go ahead and find your comfortable meditation posture.

I'd like to begin by reading a very wonderful quote from John Seed and Joanna Macy^[1], speaking about fire:

"Fire from our sun that fuels all life, drawing up plants and raising the waters to the sky to fall again, replenishing the inner furnace of our metabolism, burns with the fire of the Big Bang that first sent matter, energy spinning through space and time, and the same fire as the lightning that flashed in the primordial soup catalyzing the birth of organic life. You were there, I was there, for each cell of our bodies is descended in an unbroken chain from that event."

Allowing your body, sensing it, feel it in contact with the earth. Scan through and find any places of tension. Let this pull, this connection with the earth, let it be here. Let yourself rest into it.

You can touch into the other elements as we begin. Feel the weight and heaviness of your body. Feel the contact with the ground, and the ground beneath you.

Feel the wateriness of your body as you soften, as you bring attention to different parts of the body and the little micro-movements of the softening. Allowing the water element to come from frozen into its softer, more liquid form. The rigidity of the body being released.

Letting the spine stand tall with the earth element, the solidity holding you up, and the softness of the water.

And then beginning to allow yourself to come into contact with the fire element. First, sensing very simply and directly the places of heat, of warmth, and of cool on your body. Perhaps there are places where the clothes... the warmth of certain parts that are in contact with more protection, and then the exposure, perhaps feet, or hands, or face.

Letting yourself also feel internally the warmth. The warmth in your belly. The warmth in your chest.

This fire element that comes from our sun. The sun heating the ground, the plants photosynthesizing, the energy accumulating. And as the energy accumulates, and then we eat it, we take in that energy. We're running on sun fuel. The warmth of the sun warming us, energizing us.

The warmth comes from the outside, from the sun heating the earth—we can feel it on our skin. And we can feel it from the inside, the sun transformed into energy, taken in, used with movement and digestion, keeping it all alive, and then dissipating.

This element of fire is constantly changing, warm to cool, cool to warm, as it passes through. Constantly in a state of disintegration as well. This food comes in, the energy is used, and dissipated, released, and gone.

Feeling the sun in your belly. And this energy also in our heart. We feel the sense of fire, of passion in our heart. There's a heat, a warmth of our heart. It's like there's a line going from sun, to heart, to molten earth down below us. From molten to molten, our hearts here in the middle.

Feel how you too are part, as John Seed has said, part of that Big Bang. The energy of the universe, the heat of it, is in your body, temporarily being expressed. And just like the sun, burning itself out, but burning brightly.

You might also sense in yourself the urges, the urge to move, the urge to do things, the passion for life, for things that you care about. This heatedness of us, this is an expression, too, of the fire element as it expresses itself in us.

The sun, the energy, the warmth and cool flowing through us. We are part of this vast exchange of the fire element. No inside, no outside. Simply fire element passing through, combining with other elements, and being released.

Feel the change. Cool, then heat. Change directly on your skin, in your belly. How it changes energetically in your heart. In the restlessness and calm with your body.

If there is something in your life that is present and agitating you, or eliciting passion or compassion, let yourself feel the fire aspect of it. You don't need to go into the content, but let yourself feel. Now this, too, is the fire element.

Let yourself tune to the fire element however it's showing up most clearly to you. Letting it flow and change. Coming and going. Fire element simply moving through.

Where do you sense warmth and cool now? In your skin, and your belly, and your heart. Coming, going, changing.

Is there fire in some way, or are you more tuned to the absence of fire, the cooling, the quiet?

Nature as Teacher: Fire Element

The quote from John Seed and Joanna Macy is so wonderful that I'd like to read it to you again:

"Fire from our sun that fuels all life, drawing up plants and raising the waters to the sky to fall again, replenishing the inner furnace of our metabolism, burns with the fire of the Big Bang that first sent matter, energy spinning through space and time, and the same fire as the lightning that flashed in the primordial soup catalyzing the birth of organic life. You were there, I was there, for each cell of our bodies is descended in an unbroken chain from that event."

Lovely image. The lightning spark of life bringing us all here, keeping us all going.

And as I shared in the meditation, we're most aware of the fire element in the essence of sun and heat and energy. And if you think about it, that energy is such a key component in our lives. We feel energy both personally inside us—with every step we take being an expression of sun, of fire, of energy coming through us. I move my hand, and it's like that's the result of the sun expressing itself here.

In this way, the fire element—not unlike the other ones—we're very aware of this transition back and forth between heat and cool, the release and movement of energy. The whole play of matter and energy is so clear here, and the central element of digestion.

I'll read to you from the sutta. I think I said yesterday to somebody when they asked it was Sutta 140—and I'm sorry, it's also in Sutta 140^[2], but the sutta I'm actually quoting is number 62^[3]. And this is what he says about the fire element:

"What is the internal fire element? Whatever internally, belonging to oneself, is fire, fiery, and clung to; that is, that by which one is warmed, ages, and is consumed, and that by which what is eaten, drunk, consumed, and tasted gets completely digested, or whatever else internally, belonging to oneself, is fire, fiery, and clung to: this is called the internal fire element. Now both the internal fire element and the external fire element are simply fire element. And that should be seen as it actually is with proper wisdom thus: 'This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.'"

I want to point out something in this that's a little different than the other elements he talks about. He says, "that by which one is warmed, ages, and is consumed."

There's a way—and then he acknowledges the digestion—but there's a way he's speaking here to how the fire element has a consuming, a kind of moving from. And he said "ages"—the fact that in some ways, the fire element in us, that we're burning with the fire element, that it's what not only powers us but also burns us up.

This is core to the fire element, the way that it consumes. In its very expression, it is consuming.

And we can feel this also in the energy, the passion of us. The warmth of the heart, the fierce compassion, has a desire to move, to do, to express itself, not just to sit or be. And we feel this sometimes with the passion of anger. This consuming, almost chaotic—when you watch a fire, there's a chaoticness to it, right? There's this energy that's quite compelling, for one thing, but it's also got this rather ferocious quality. If you think of goddesses in Hindu traditions, and when you see fierce monsters in the Tibetan thangkas^[4], they're expressing this consumptive quality.

And one of the things here that becomes clear is that when fire is paired with clinging—as he points out, "when it is clung to"—then it is associated even more directly with this agitation, with consumption, with greed, with wanting, with destruction, with anger.

There's a lack of balance when it's paired with clinging. And this really points to the nature of our dominant experience, or the nature of our culture, that we are the fire element. I mean, look how we're burning. We're burning the fossil fuels, we're burning with speed, with energy, and we're burning ourselves up in doing this.

There's a lack of balance, and yet we have this cultural attraction towards the fire. We want to move faster, do more. And very interestingly, in the Buddhist teachings, when fire is paired with non-clinging, it is freedom. It is Nibbana^[5]. Nibbana is talked about as the cooling, the releasing of fire from that which it clings to.

I'll read you a quote from Phra Ajahn [Jutiko?]^[6], a Thai Forest monk. He said: "The mind released is like fire that has gone out. The fire is not annihilated, but is still there, diffused in the air. It simply no longer latches on to any fuel."

So this brings a query for us in our practice: what is it to have this fire, this compassion of the heart, the warmth, but not flavored with the clinging, by the greed and the wanting?

I had a very direct felt experience of this releasing element of fire, of a sort of different cultural experience, you might say. I once went to Burning Man. There's a day where they burn this huge thing, this man that stands huge, tall, and it's fiery and energetic, and everybody's yelling and screaming, and there's this chaotic kind of energy.

And then the next night, there is a temple that has been built. Some of you may have been there; some of you, this isn't your thing, but just imagine this huge, beautiful temple all built out of wood. Over the week of Burning Man, people have been going into this temple. There are stairs, and it's big inside, and it's raw wood. And people write inside the temple—it's like a massive invitation for graffiti. They write the names and messages to people that have passed in the previous year.

So it's a temple to impermanence and passing. And then on this day, the day after the burning of the man, the temple is burned. Huge fire. All those names, all those people being sent and released. And what was, for me, incredibly dramatic about it is there were, I think, like 20,000 people all surrounding the temple out at a distance, and it was so quiet. You could have heard a pin drop. Complete and utter quiet, recognizing the incredible power of fire and release.

And this is our practice: release of clinging. In the silence, in the stillness, is the power, and the release of the power. And our query as we practice is to invite ourselves to burn with fierce compassion for all forms, and yet, recognizing their ultimate empty nature, not to cling.

Everything is disintegrating. That's its nature. And in the midst of that, the purity of the compassionate heart, and the opportunity to meet everything so fully, and to know the blessing and the awe of the world. Fire is an invitation to all of this.

Thank you all for joining this morning. Before you go, I want to offer you a practice for this day around fire. See if you can feel the fire. You can feel it just as heat and warmth, but I invite you to feel fire and what it's like when you cling. When there's the fire element, there's passion, there's the urge to move. When is it connected and held in place with clinging? And what is the essence of fire as it moves through you in the moments when there's not clinging? Can you feel that difference?

That's my invitation for you for today. So, thank you all again very much.