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Guided Meditation: Quiet Receptivity

Hello everyone, and welcome.

I have a tendency, when I approach my meditation time and sit down, to become quiet in my mind. So, it's a little strange to sit down to meditate every morning with you this way and start with words.

This idea of quiet—it's like there are times, like on the vacation I had last week where we were in the mountains hiking, and there'd be these places we'd come to: beautiful mountain lakes and groves of trees. It seemed that the way to approach it was to be quiet, not to talk so much, and also to have silence in the mind, a receptivity. As if the place that we're in is to be respected, attended to, heard, seen, and listened to on its own terms, not on what I think should be happening, or what I think I want, or what my thoughts are spinning stories about.

Perhaps there are times in ordinary life where that happens. Maybe we go to a temple or a church, and entering into it, there's a kind of reverence^[1] and a silence, like, "Okay, this is a place to open attention up and take in the ambiance, take in the presence." A place to be quiet and not come barreling ahead with all our thoughts and concerns. Going to a funeral can be like this. Going to a preschool class when all the children are napping—it's so peaceful and quiet, and it's the time to become quiet oneself.

And so, meditation is a time like this. There's a receptivity, an availability, an attentiveness to something. We're quieting the mind; we're not living in the world of our thoughts, interpreting things, making stories about things, or dwelling on expectations of what should or shouldn't be happening.

The mind can be spinning, and sometimes it spins fast. There's fast food, and now slow food; there's fast thinking, and there's slow thinking and quiet thinking. There's thinking that is more receptive to the moment, being present and not asserting itself, its desires, wants, wishes, and fears on top of the moment.

We come to meditation to recognize how it is for us. Are we bringing a truckload of thoughts, ideas, stories, memories, plans, and concerns to churn and think about? If so, then that's what should be listened to and attended to in a quiet way, as if something needs to be heard and you're the hearer. You're the one who will listen.

Sometimes it's clear that coming into meditation, we're allowing the thinking mind to take a backstage. It's not that important what we think. What's important is what we're feeling, what's happening, or the presence and attentiveness to the situation—allowing the situation to speak to us rather than us being the speaker and the talker.

So, sit in meditation with a quietude, a receptivity, a listening to whatever is there. Assume a meditation posture—a posture in which to be receptive, to listen better. A posture which uses the body to attend, to be here with our experience. This means, for many people, sitting a little bit more upright or a little bit more intentional.

Then gently closing your eyes, and noticing how this moment is for you. As if your body, your heart, your mind is the temple that you step into. Maybe things become quieter as you listen, sense, and feel what is here.

And with what's here, gently, and maybe slowly, take a few long breaths. As if with each breath, you're gently touching your full experience—gently feeling, attending. And as you exhale, relax and soften this body.

Let your breathing return to normal.

As you continue meditating today, if you notice that you might be thinking and lost in thought, remind yourself there's a different way of being. It does not depend on thinking. Let your thoughts get quieter, softer. Let the thinking recede to the background so you're not living in your thoughts, so you're not seeing everything through the lens of thinking, stories, and meaning.

Let your experience of the moment be known quietly, without thinking. A reverence, a respect for everything, which invites a quieting of the mind as you enter into a sacred place of your direct, immediate experience. Breathing here.

For this meditation, don't center yourself on your thinking. Let the thinking recede so you can center yourself on your direct experience, as if your thinking mind gets quiet so you can feel better or hear better. There can be a receptivity to the specialness of the moment.

As we come to the end of the sitting, perhaps it's possible to feel and recognize the difference between being with other people and asserting our desires, needs, and agendas, versus being present with others—listening, receiving the other, and being available for the other to be.

To barrel ahead with your own wishes, needs, and desires, or to relax, open up, and get to know the other person—to feel, to sense, to really know who you're with.

Love, in the family of love, compassion, care, goodwill, and kindness, arises most easily in the second mode. It doesn't have much space when we are asserting ourselves, our needs, wants, and agendas. But love has much more time, space, and availability when we take the time to be quiet, receptive, and truly know the person we're with.

So perhaps you can imagine meeting someone today, a stranger or someone you know, from the peacefulness, receptivity, or calmness of meditation. In whatever way, self-assertion has taken a back seat in the background, and you can just be with someone without a need, a want, or an assertion of self.

And from this place, let there be kindness, goodwill, and well-wishing.

May others be happy.
May others be safe.
May others be peaceful.
May others be free.

And may you tap into your kindness and love with which to meet others.

May we meet in friendliness and kindness today, as we learn not to fill the space with our stories, our agendas^[2], our needs, and our wants, so there's more space to know, feel, and love.

Dharmette: Grief (2 of 5) Elements of Grief

Hello, and welcome to this second talk on grief, a topic and a state of being that can be very difficult. It can also be very deeply connected to our love, the depths of who we are, and what we think is important in this life. It's a very important topic: to be able to learn how to be present for it, recognize it, and get under the surface to see it more clearly. Grief is not an enemy, an illness, or a problem. Grief is part and parcel of human life, and becoming wise about it and knowing how to be with it is one of the great benefits of mindfulness practice.

I'm defining grief as the pain arising in the emptiness born from loss. I'm hoping this definition will span all the different ways in which grief is experienced, because there's an infinite number of ways grief appears. Sometimes it's more emotional, sometimes more physical, and sometimes more relational in nature.

All kinds of different cultures grieve in different ways, experiencing the pain of loss^[3] differently. But because it involves a loss, that loss means there's now an emptiness, an absence of something. That absence or emptiness can be huge. Some people feel it's so huge that nothing will ever fill it again, and they will always be in this great vacuum, this place of meaninglessness, loneliness, or loss.

But the bigger that emptiness is, the bigger that absence is, the more it actually gets filled. It gets filled with many, many things. Part of mindfulness practice is to begin to enter into this world of emptiness to be able to see clearly what fills it. What characterizes this pain, this discomfort that comes with loss?

Rather than taking our grief as a singular thing—"my grief"—we can put a little question mark after it. What is this? Maybe we don't really know the grief, so what is it?

We can sit with it and be with it, not so much to investigate and think about it, but rather to enter into grief as if it's a temple or a sacred spot. A place we enter quietly, peacefully, and non-assertively, without our needs, demands, and wants, to really be present in the middle of this emptiness and make space and room for what's there.

We can then see all the different elements of it. One of the key things I find helpful is not to give a lot of preferential treatment to the world of thinking—to the thoughts, stories, memories, and meanings that we assign to the situation. Rather, enter into this emptiness and start seeing there are stories, meanings, thoughts, ideas, and associations. Those are part of the big picture, along with the emotions and feelings. We begin making space for all the component parts.

Grief is a composite of many different pieces. Some of them are very personal, some cultural, some come from our life experience, and some from hopes and aspirations where the rug has been pulled out from under them. We enter into this carefully, with quietude, to really recognize, "Oh, this is what's happening," and make space for it.

The thinking mind can become quiet in its relationship to grief. This is not easy, but it's probably one of the most respectful things to do: to truly make room for the natural, inner process our body has for being with grief, allowing it its space and time.

To begin understanding the component parts of grief, I want to talk a little bit about what these might be. One is to appreciate the kind of grief it is, or the source of the grief.

Relational Loss

Some grief is very relational in nature. It has to do with a relationship that has been severed and lost. For example, there's been a death of a parent, a child, a spouse, a sibling, or a friend. That relationship was so important, and a lot about it comes into play with the grief. Or there might be a divorce, and a lot about that relationship comes into play. The quality of the relatedness that's no longer there is what creates the emptiness and absence.

Functional Loss

Other kinds of grief are more functional. This isn't so much about a relationship with another person, but about losing our abilities. There's a grief about aging; as we get older, many of our abilities lessen. There's grief from an accident, where functions we relied on no longer work. We might be paralyzed, and we'll never be able to do things we did before because our body doesn't function the same way. There is grief in the loss of functioning.

Loss of Roles

Then there's the loss of roles. Sometimes people retire and lose a role that was crucial to who they were. Children leave home, and the active role of being a parent is no longer there—the grief of not being able to care for someone or have breakfast ready for them. When someone dies, part of the grief might not just be the loss of the relationship, but the loss of our role as the caregiver, lover, or friend, which was such a valuable part of our identity.

Loss of Identity and Futures

This brings us more clearly to identity itself. When a certain loss occurs, you can't be the person you were before. You grieve the loss of identity—who you thought you were, and who you thought you were going to become. If a spouse dies, you may have expected to be in retirement together, traveling around the world, or playing bridge. But now this spouse is gone, and those anticipated futures are no longer there. Some people are grieving lost futures, anticipated ideas of what was going to come, but also lost identities of who they were going to be.

We also lose material goods. We might lose all our money in a stock market crash, and our identity as someone who is financially stable, secure, or wealthy is gone. Our identity as someone who can do things that require money goes away, leading to a grief tied to identity. We can lose valuable property, financial security, or our home, sometimes through situations like divorce, losing something that was deeply important to us.

Personal vs. Collective Grief

These are all different kinds of losses that come into play. Some of these griefs are very personal in nature, and some are more social and interpersonal.

In an individualistic culture, like perhaps the United States, many people do not live in a rich, dynamic social sphere of family, clan, or tribe. A couple might be living alone as they get older, with no one else particularly taking care of them. When one person dies, they aren't caught by a rich network of family. The grief is very individualistic, very alone, and it can be very lonely.

Conversely, for people living in an extended family, compound, town, village, or tribe, if a village elder dies, the grief is very social. It's collective, something everyone shares. The social dynamic of the village changes with this death, the whole social world begins shifting, and grief takes a very different form. It's not so lonely; it's collective, and cultural aspects come into play with how people grieve.

Sitting With Grief

Grief is a composite, made up of many different things. It is not a singular thing. Though each powerful grief we experience might seem like the end of the world—like something so huge that nothing could ever be the same again—we can enter into the world of our grief.

Perhaps in meditation, we can let the mind become quiet. This is one of the gifts or approaches of meditation: to enter into what's difficult and be present for it, without letting thinking get the upper hand. We feel, sense, and begin allowing the pieces of it to show themselves and be recognized.

Some very different things can happen with grief when we're not churning, spinning, and living in thoughts, histories, and memories. The stories quiet down. The stories are important, but there's another way.

In these 15 minutes, I hope this has given you something to consider: in the emptiness of grief, we fill it with many, many things. If we sit quietly in the middle of it, all the different component parts can be recognized. The extra pieces—the parts of grief which are not needed—can quiet and settle. Some of that has to do with the stories we tell ourselves and the meanings we assign to grief, which will be the topic for tomorrow.

Thank you. Care for yourself well. Think of mindfulness as a powerful way of protecting, caring for, and loving yourself—by not asserting your desires and needs on top of yourself, but rather by listening deeply with respect to what is here.