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Guided Meditation:Calm Ongoingness

So, good day to everyone, and welcome to this meditation.

There are times, especially when I was a relatively new meditator, that I had two different things I would tell myself about meditation. Different times, different mindsets. In particular, I used these when things were challenging. If I had a lot of physical pain, or something that was difficult to be present for, the first mindset I would use was to say to myself, moment by moment, that I would just be present for this moment, and then the next moment. I'd try to be content with just being here for this, and for this. If it was just this moment, and that's all there was, then I could be with the difficulty.

The other thing that I would do is say to myself, "What if this is forever?" Whatever was happening, what if this was it? I suppose it could be a reason to despair or be depressed, but for me, when I said, "What if this is forever?" then there was no reason to fight it. There was no reason to try to change it or try to escape it. It was just, "Okay, this is what I have to accept." That would also loosen up something in my mind that would make it easier for me. "Okay, this is what I'm going to stay here for."

Those two mindsets I used sometimes, and the consequence of both of them was a kind of, "Okay, this is it. I'm just going to steadily do my practice, show up, and be present in an ongoing way." This ongoingness—"okay, this is what I'm doing, this is where I am." Sometimes that wasn't so difficult to do if things were going well, but there were all kinds of times when it wasn't going so easily. This inspiration to the ongoing step-by-step, or breath-by-breath, moment-by-moment—just this, just this. It taught me to set the course. It taught me not to be so caught up in goals and trying to achieve things, and trying to change my experience or get away from it. It taught me to really appreciate, to value, to even enjoy the momentariness of each moment of showing up, being here, being here, being here.

Sometimes, as I got into that, there started to be a kind of flow in the present moment. This movement with the present moment's ongoingness at some point felt more like I was carried by the present moment rather than having to show up for it.

It's a steady, very simple, calm, kind of modest approach to meditation: just the ordinary ongoingness of this moment, this moment. Not making it complicated. Not looking for something grand and wonderful. Not belittling anything, not denying anything, not criticizing anything. Not being in some ways for or against anything. Just the ongoingness.

It's kind of like going for a walk up a mountain, where there's all kinds of things on the mountain. Difficult things to see, easy things, wonderful things to see. Steep, difficult places, rocky territory, smooth, easy places to walk. But if it's a long, long way up to the top of the mountain, it's just the ongoing step, then step, and step, and step. The ongoingness of practice, the ongoing momentariness of each moment of practice.

To prepare yourself for that journey, establish yourself in a posture that seems conducive to remembering to be present. A posture that supports you or guides you into being present for your experience. Perhaps a posture that is a little bit intentional. A little bit like you're really in the posture. A little bit more, slightly more alert than usual. Not overemphasizing being relaxed and comfortable, but not looking to be uncomfortable either. So there's a little bit of intentionality.

Gently close your eyes. Then gentling yourself in your body, a gentling of your inner life.

Maybe take a few deeper breaths today. Deep enough to be half of how full you can breathe. A little bit more than you would without effort, but just a little effort to fill your lungs. And then that gentle releasing of all that on the exhale. Here too, there's an intentionality in how you're breathing for a few breaths. The intentionality of the practice is a way of gathering yourself in the present moment.

Then letting your breathing return to normal. Part of this intentionality is the intentional activity of relaxing. Soften and relax the muscles of your face. Soften and relax your shoulders. Soften and relax your belly.

Becoming aware of your body breathing. Here, with each breath, each inhale and each exhale, settling in for the ongoingness of one moment at a time of attention. One moment after another. One step, in a sense, in the ongoing journey of being present here and here and now.

Bring a little bit of relaxed intentionality, a sense of purpose or dedication, maybe even devotion, to calmly, steadily going on with being here, now, with this, with this. Perhaps being supported by the ongoingness of breathing. Breathing keeps breathing over and over again, there to remind you to be present moment by moment, ongoingly.

[Silence]

Being mindful of the ongoingness of mindfulness. This simple, calm ongoingness of now, and now, and now.

[Silence]

As we come to the end of this sitting, I'd like to apply the idea of ongoingness of practice to kindness. To ongoing kindness. One orientation that has supported me in this regard is to imagine that kindnesses can be very simple and modest. That it can be a simple interior attitude that I carry with me ongoingly, without needing to express it externally in words or in deeds. Just giving myself that permission not to need to express it externally makes it easier to be devoted to it internally. Not to give it up. An ongoing friendliness or ongoing warm-hearted caringness that's not dramatic, and maybe unnoticed by others. The ongoingness is to be very careful not to sacrifice it or give it up easily, but to stay in the simplicity of a private feeling of kindness as you go through the day.

An interior feeling of goodwill or caringness. In this way, knowing that it doesn't have to be expressed externally, maybe it's easier to end the sitting with a wish for the welfare and happiness of others.

May whatever benefit that has come from this meditation today keep each of us close to an interior kindness of wishing all beings to be happy. Wishing all beings to be safe. Wishing all beings to be peaceful. Wishing all beings to be free. And that we, in simple, appropriate ways, stay close to this wish, open to the possibility of contributing to the welfare of others. May all beings be happy.

Dharmette: Sutta Stories - The Buddha's Last Year

This morning there'll be another day of storytelling from the discourses of the Buddha. This time, some of the story will be constructed out of the evidence and the pieces that are there. It seems that, for the most part, the people who composed these earliest discourses of the Buddha weren't particularly interested in history or biography. They weren't really doing much of a biography of the Buddha. But there are all these little snippets of stories that exist, and some of them we can connect the dots with to understand a bigger piece of the history of the times and the life of the Buddha.

I'm going to tell some of what comes from the early discourses, piecing pieces together. Some of it comes from a little bit later, from the commentaries that also tried to provide the bigger context for some of these stories. A piece of what inspires this discussion today is some of the work of Stephen Batchelor, who has done some of this work of piecing together the evidence.

It has to do with the end of the Buddha's life, and the context of the times during the last year of his life. What we begin seeing if we start looking at the pieces is that the society around him—much of the society he knew and his people he was close to—were dying, or the societies were beginning to fall apart. War was happening and kings were being usurped from power. The Buddha's own senior, closest disciples were dying this last year of his life.

And the Buddha, seemingly through it all, was calm and peaceful. He died very peacefully under some trees. This contrast between the society falling apart around him and his peacefulness is quite striking. Maybe it's something that's also relevant for all human times. It seems like almost every generation thinks that the world is falling apart around them.

So, piecing things together begins in the last year of the Buddha's life, maybe when he was about eighty. The text says that the king comes to talk to the Buddha and says, "Both of us are eighty years old." The Buddha is up in his home country, Sakya, in the foothills of the Himalayas in parts of Nepal. He was perhaps on retreat or just living quietly there in his old age.

Nearby was another kingdom where there was a King Pasenadi^[1]. They had been friends since early in the Buddha's teaching career. They were the same age, and they had struck up a friendship. For forty-six years or so, they had seen each other periodically and were considered friends. King Pasenadi was also a student, very devoted to the Buddha.

This king was out and about and wanted to visit the Buddha, maybe one last time in their old age. He went with a minister whom he apparently trusted. They rode close to where the Buddha was in the forest. The king got off his horse or his elephant, whatever he was riding, and said to his minister, "I'm going to go in there and see the Buddha alone. Here, hold these things." He handed over to the minister all the insignia and paraphernalia that represented his power as king—his sword, his crown or turban, and different things representing his authority. The minister was a little bit perturbed. "What's going on here? Is there some secret plan he doesn't want me to hear?" He was a little bit suspicious about what was happening.

The king goes into the forest and sees the Buddha, and gives almost a eulogy for the Buddha. It's almost like he knows he is seeing him for the last time, and he speaks in high praise of the Buddha. And that's how the sutta just ends, right there.

So the Buddha is eighty years old, an old man. Then we have another discourse that has to do with the last days of the Buddha's life—the story of his passing away. That's a little bit more of a chronology spanning many months. It begins with the Buddha being almost as far away from his home country as he could be in his world of northern India. Maybe some three hundred miles away; I'm not sure exactly how many, but quite far. Here was a man who was eighty years old, who had been in his home country, and then sometime later over the next year, he was three hundred miles away, far to the south near what is now called Pataliputra. How did he get there, and why did he go there?

The story almost begins with the Buddha walking back home. He came all the way down these three hundred miles only to seemingly turn around and go back to his home country. Why such a quick trip?

Piecing it together, one idea comes from what the commentaries say about the minister who took the king's paraphernalia. The commentaries say that this minister had a little bit of resentment for the king. So he abandoned the king there in the forest, left him with a horse and one attendant, went back to the capital, and handed the symbols of power to the king's son, who thereby usurped the throne. The king came out of the forest without anything really, except a horse.

So he went down to visit another king at the place where the Buddha ended up going. This other king was his relative—I think a son-in-law or cousin. They had been at war with each other over those forty years, but they had also made some peace. King Pasenadi had nowhere else to go supposedly, so he went down to see his relative. He made this long trip himself as an old man, and apparently he was not in very good shape. Some of the texts say that he was kind of fat and a little bit lazy. He made this long trip and came to the capital where this other king, Ajatasattu^[2]—the one who'd killed his father, the story I told earlier—was reigning.

He arrived at night, and the city gates were closed. So he stayed and slept in some home or hall outside, and he died that night. Piecing this together, it seems that the Buddha knew that his friend, the king, had been usurped and was headed south. So the Buddha followed, maybe to offer support for the king or to intervene. But when he arrived at the capital, his friend had died.

There was not much reason to stay there, so the Buddha started marching home. But before he did, Ajatasattu sent a minister to talk to the Buddha. The minister said, "I'm thinking about attacking the neighboring country." This was the country between Ajatasattu's country and the Buddha's home country. It was a republic, not really run by a king, and a place where the Buddha had often lived. The minister asked, "Do you have any advice for us? What do you think of us attacking and conquering this neighboring country?"

The Buddha gives some advice, which I won't tell you right now because of time, but he prevented the war then and there. However, in giving his advice about why he shouldn't attack, the Buddha unintentionally gave the clue for what the king had to do in order to attack the neighboring country—which he did successfully three years later.

As the Buddha then got up to leave and start heading north to his home country, he passed a river. There he saw another minister of King Ajatasattu, who was beginning to lay down the ramparts or the walls for a great new fort in preparation for war. War is at hand; war preparations are going on.

The Buddha begins walking north. I want to read you this description the Buddha gives of himself:

"I am now old, worn out, venerable one who has traversed life's path. I have reached the term of life, which is eighty. Just as an old cart is made to go by being held together by straps, so the Tathāgata's^[3] body is kept going by being strapped up. It is only when I meditate deeply that my body knows comfort and is at ease."

Here is an eighty-year-old person in the ancient world who's being held together by straps. His body is falling apart, in other words, and he's in pain. Only in meditation is he free of his pain. Back then, they had no pain medication. And this old man is walking. He's in pain. His close friend, the king, had just been usurped and had died. The other king is about to conquer a country that had embraced the Buddha, and they were getting ready to attack it. And on this long walk north to his home country, he learns that his two closest disciples had died—one had been killed by bandits and the other had just died.

And the Buddha keeps walking. At some point, he gets diarrhea or dysentery. He's quite sick with lots of pain. He gets revived enough and keeps heading home, but at some point, he realizes he's going to die. He doesn't reach home. He finds two magnificent trees to lay down underneath, never to get up again.

He lays there and spends his last time teaching his disciples. Then he carefully asks them, "Do you have any other questions for me before I die?" No one asks anything. So the Buddha finally says his last words:

"All things are impermanent. Everything is impermanent. Practice diligently. Carry on diligently, ongoingly carry on."

Then he dies. He dies by going into deep meditation states. He goes as deep as possible in what's possible through meditation, and then he begins coming out. In the fourth Jhāna^[4], which is one of the most sublime places to be—maybe the ideal place in which to die—his life passed away.

This is the image of this man peacefully dying: at peace with himself, surrounded by his disciples, giving his last teachings, and then peacefully going into the one last journey in his deep meditation states, where his life passes away. He is spiritually easy. His inner life is deeply at peace in a peaceful setting in the woods under trees.

But all around him, kings are being usurped, war is about to happen, people are dying. The Buddha is an old man, sick, in pain, walking up through India, and he doesn't reach his home country. The juxtaposition of a world out of kilter and the Buddha at peace.

This is the end of the Buddha's time, his life. How we think about that, and how we live with that and understand that in relationship to our own life... perhaps the words the Buddha said as his last words can apply to us as well: All things are impermanent. Practice diligently.

Thank you.