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Guided Meditation: What's Comes Forth?

Well, I'm happy to sit here, to come into my meditation posture. This is my second sitting of the day, and it's quite wonderful to come back into this. I feel the pull in my body and myself to just be quiet.

I'm supposed to say something here and welcome you all, but it is one of the wonderful things I've mentioned before—having such familiarity and delight to sit down. It is so happy to be able to sit and meditate. I don't know if some of you have had this experience as well. Waking up in the morning, sometimes I look forward, in a very happy, nice way, to a cup of coffee. But then in a deeper way, I often wake up these days, or sit down to meditate, with a feeling of delight and happiness: Oh, I'm so lucky. This is going to be good.

So, we'll sit quietly together today. And maybe as you sit, as you meditate, whatever posture you're meditating in, the task is more than just to be in the present moment, with your breathing and your direct experience. Maybe the task is to be in the present moment so you can feel there's something here in your being, in your experience of being alive, that feels a pull towards being present. Feeling the aliveness. Feeling the offering presence, waking up in the middle of your experience. It's not just being mindful; it's feeling the way the whole body, heart, and mind likes being awake, likes being present.

I know that all of us, including myself, can have challenges. I sit sometimes with feelings that are not so pleasant. And even with that, and maybe because of that, it's even more precious and valuable to be awake in the middle of it. I can feel that pull. So hopefully these words point to something for you.

Sitting up, laying down, or standing, intentionally and maybe slowly put yourself into your meditation posture. Do this as a way of beginning to feel your body in the posture, and to feel that there's something besides your thinking mind, your calculating mind, your worried mind, that you can sense into for how to place and position your body, and how to approach your breathing.

Closing your eyes if you haven't, maybe try not doing mindfulness meditation the way you usually do, at least at first. See what call, what pull, what deeper way your lived experience welcomes you to be awake in the middle of it. Sit quietly. Breathing quietly. With a deeper pull of the body and the heart to be awake. Here. Now.

And as we approach the end of this sitting, I'll offer you a metaphor. Before a chick hatches from its egg, it begins poking and pecking with its beak against the inner edge of its egg, pushing to break through. What is it in you that wants to come forth when you are most quiet, most not thinking about an answer to this question, but sensing and intuiting deep in your body and your heart? What is it that wants to come forth? What wants to be born? Can you feel something like pecking, pushing, germinating, or growing? In the silence of awareness, try to make lots of room for it with lots of patience.

In the silence of awareness, the quiet and spaciousness of whatever meditation you have now, imagine that your inner goodness, whatever it might be, spreads out into the world. May your goodness, whatever it is, touch others to remind them that they're valued, they're important, and they, too, have goodness.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. Thank you.

Dharmette: Nuns' Poems (3 of 5) Canda and Vasetthi

To continue with this week's reading of the verses of the senior nuns from the ancient world, we are looking at a remarkable text called the Therigatha^[1]. Theri means a female thera^[2], which is an elder. In monastic circles, you become a thera if you've been a monastic for ten years. It refers to someone who has been a monastic for some time, but it's also considered to be someone who has some seniority in terms of teaching.

It is likely that this is the earliest human record that survives of spiritual, religious poetry by women. I call it liberation poetry, and it is a remarkable testament. Some of the verses are quite inspiring. Some, to our modern ears and sensibilities, maybe not as much. But in the ancient world, it might have been deeply meaningful. They had a very different context for poetry than we have.

This first poem is called Moon. Well, it's not actually called Moon; the name of the nun is Canda^[3], and Canda means moon. I love the idea—last night there was a full moon, so we have the radiance of the full moon. Here is the story she shares:

I was poor, widowed, without children, without friends or relatives. I obtained neither food nor clothes. Taking a bowl and staff, I went from family to family begging for alms. Tormented by cold and heat, I wandered for seven years.

Remember, ancient India did not have a welfare or social service system. There was no local homeless shelter or soup kitchen. If you had no family and no children to take care of you in your old age, things were hard. You had to go begging. So, here she was for seven years; she wandered, tormented by cold and heat. And then she continues:

But then I saw a nun receiving food and drink. Approaching her, I said, "Let me go forth into homelessness."

Maybe for her, it was a matter of survival. She saw that if you are a nun, you will be supported.

With kindness for me, she, Patacara^[4], allowed me to go forth. Then she advised me, urging me toward the ultimate goal. Hearing her words, I did what she advised. The lady's words were not in vain. I am free of taints and a knower of liberating knowledge, the three knowledges^[5].

It is quite a life to live in poverty, alone, and wandering around for so many years. Seemingly, no one was stepping in to help her or give her a hand up. And then she met Patacara, whose liberation poem I read yesterday. Patacara, a very important early Buddhist teacher, invited her to be a nun. To me, it's touching: "With kindness for me, she allowed me to go forth." Canda's motivation to go forth might have just been to get food and clothes. Patacara accepted her and brought her in anyway, regardless of her reasoning. She taught her, and her words were not in vain. Canda became free.

Here is another story of a nun who was deeply challenged and suffered a lot. It's truly touching how many of these nuns came out of very difficult circumstances. Their shared story is that they found their way out of suffering through Buddhist practice and by becoming nuns.

This woman's name is Vasetthi^[6]. We're not sure exactly what Vasetthi might mean. It might just be a clan or family name. However, looking at the ancient etymology of the words, it could also mean something like "wanting clothes." Sometimes when people lived in extreme poverty in India, they didn't even have clothes to wear. Here is what she says:

Tormented by grief for my son, my mind was deranged, demented, naked, hair unkempt, I wandered here and there through streets, garbage heaps, and cemeteries. I wandered for three years plagued by hunger and thirst. Then I saw the Buddha walking toward town, the tamer of the untamed, fully awake, fearing nothing. Regaining my mind, I bowed and sat down. Out of kindness, he, Gotama^[7], taught me the Dhamma^[8]. Hearing the Dhamma, I went forth into homelessness. Practicing what the teacher said, I realized the auspicious state. All grief was cut off, abandoned, terminated. Now I understand the ground from where grief comes.

She understood the ground of grief when she became free. In ancient India, having a son die—especially if it was your only son—made life socially very difficult for a woman. A woman's status, place in society, and place in her family was entirely tied to having sons. So, her grief was not simply the grief of losing someone she loved; it was also the grief of losing a whole way of life, losing her support, and losing her place in society.

You get a distinct feeling and sense of these poems. You see the lives of these women and the challenges they faced. This was a time when there were no therapists, no antidepressant medications, and no social services. People were truly on their own with their suffering and their torments.

In that context, people like Patacara and the Buddha would walk through society having attained peace, living a life of radical simplicity and renunciation. They modeled a whole different way of being that others hadn't seen before. It touched something very deep inside of people. It spoke to them, reaching something that was ready to be born, to come forth, and to be realized.

As Vasetthi says, "Regaining my mind," she heard the Dhamma, practiced, and became free. This is a possibility for all of us.

One of the beautiful things to consider in these poems is that these women made a big choice to practice. They chose to become nuns, turning their whole lives upside down to completely give themselves over to this alternative that was being offered. It's quite a testament to something very powerful that can gestate, germinate, and grow in a human being.

May these ancient nuns live on in our inspiration and our practice. Thank you.