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Guided Meditation: Allowing What Is

Greetings, welcome to the meditation.

It's a happy sight to see the stream of good mornings here on the chat. It's just a wonderful river of goodwill. I love seeing the familiar names, and I love seeing new names. Very nice.

One of the hallmarks of Buddhism and Buddhist practice is freedom. Freedom is a little complicated to appreciate because it's very easy to feel that freedom is unfettered, unlimited ability to act on our desires, to act on our compulsions, to give room to whatever we're feeling, wanting, or disliking. Just allowing our feelings to flow freely and fully and then acting on them. That's not quite the freedom of Buddhism.

The freedom of Buddhism is not ego-based or conceit-based. It's not the freedom that allows unfettered expression of our desires, our animosities, and our fears. Rather, it is a freedom that's deeper than that, which allows for something in our depths that's independent of greed, hatred, and delusion—independent of the whole complex of emotions and impulses that come out of what could be called conceit. It allows that to be free of us in a sense, but it is coming from our depths. It is a hugely integral part of who we are: the dharma, the dharma that we are, a dharma that flows through us.

That's one of the reasons why, provisionally, mindfulness can be understood as getting out of the way, or as giving a pause—of just allowing things to be, seeing them, being aware of them, and making room for whatever is here. It is a progressive process of just getting out of the way and allowing our inner experience to flow.

That allowing is not acting on our impulses or compulsions, but listening, sensing, and feeling into what's deeper. What freedom can we give to what's deeper and more intimate? That which lies at the foundation of our life, or that which comes from someplace within that is more wholesome, deeper than the place of unwholesomeness or unskillfulness—things that are based on compulsion. We can have the trust to allow ourselves not to act on compulsion, but to make room for something else than what comes from fear, compulsive desire, compulsive animosity, resentment, or what swirls around and gets trapped in the cycles of fear that might exist.

So, to pause, to allow, to get out of the way of one's own experience.

To begin this process, we take a pause in our daily activities to meditate. Not so much to make something happen, but to discover what is here for us, and have that discovery be equivalent to keeping opening doors to what is here.

Taking a posture—assuming a posture that allows your body to pause from usual activities. For most of you, it's probably a stationary posture, so the body is still. That allows us to tune into and be aware of the sensations of the body that are maybe more subtle than what would be the case if we were doing a lot of movement.

One of the things that we don't pay much attention to in daily life can be the ongoing rhythm of breathing. So maybe take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Perhaps not aggressive breaths, not too forceful, but some deep, gentle breaths. Full breaths, three-quarters full in, and a long exhale, a long release. And as we exhale, at the end of the exhale, relax the belly, maybe relax the chest.

Then, letting your breathing return to normal with no special effort to breathe in special ways. In this process of beginning to get out of the way and allow what are, in a sense, the natural processes of the body to be free of our interference, wanting, or trying to make something happen.

Allowing the breathing to breathe itself. And if that's not possible, don't worry about it; allow that.

Perhaps as a way of continuing to settle in, on the exhale, relax the body more fully. Wherever in your body your attention lands as you exhale, soften and relax.

The idea of releasing can also be helpful here—releasing the places in the body that are contracted. And then letting go of the effort to relax or release, and really just allow what's here.

Discover what your experience is now. Seeing if that discovery, that noticing, can be spacious, or allowing, or maybe even gentle. Noticing that gives room for your experience to be what it is, without being involved in it, judging it, thinking about it, analyzing it.

Coming in close so it's the direct experience—the experience as it manifests in the body. The physicality of whatever is happening for you, emotions and a lot of thinking. Discover and make space for the physical way it feels and senses in the body.

Perhaps quieting your thinking so there's more room in attention to discover, to feel, to sense.

And at the center of what is arising, appearing, is the coming and going^[1] of the inhales and the exhales. And to allow those experiences to arise in freedom from ourselves, our desires, our wantings, expectations, judgments. However the breathing is, let it be.

And whatever your experience is, let it be. But let it be in as clear an awareness as you can, with knowing, "Ah, this is how it is."

As we go along, new experiences will arise, things will get strong and loud. Just keep getting out of the way to allow each thing to be known, just known for what it is. In a sense, granting freedom to everything that the mind can know as it's known in the present moment.

Knowing what's happening and allowing it. Getting out of the way so we're not participating in it, just aware of it.

And then to come to the end of this sitting, the ability to be sensitive and aware in a deep way, or sensitive to what's happening within us that's deeper than the ways we might feel overwhelmed by life or frustrated by life. Deeper than the contractions of fear, the compulsions of desire, the fever of animosity.

To feel our way deep inside to where there is a kind of space, ease, and peace from which our goodwill flows, from which friendliness has a chance. Simple, ordinary kindness. These simple, ordinary feelings of goodwill that so easily get eclipsed by all the preoccupations of the mind and our life.

To have some sense, some intuition of a place of kindness, goodwill, care, love, and compassion that is not an obligation, but rather something that also lives in us, something that also flows and arises. It's something wholesome and good that's beneficial for us to give expression to. Some of the wholesome aspects of who we are grow when we give them expression.

So at the end of a sitting, we give expression to our appreciation, our respect, our care for others by wishing them well. And by wishing that our meditation practice supports us in our care for the world.

May it be that this practice we've done today is for the welfare, happiness, and support of all beings everywhere. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings everywhere be free.

Dharmette: Refuge (4 of 5) Actions as Refuge

To continue this topic of refuge: refuge arises in us when we understand that there is a profound support for our lives, that there is a way of being that provides a sense of safety, that provides a sense of purpose, a direction, and orientation for our lives. When we understand that some kind of clear insight that we have can be this basis or support for how we live our lives.

So refuge is considered to be really valuable in Buddhism. As I've been saying, in early Buddhism and the teachings of the Buddha, there are different things that are highlighted as worthy refuge. Certainly, what we most commonly know about is the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha^[2]. Yesterday I talked about having oneself as a refuge, and today I will talk about action, the activities.

The Buddha also said that we have our actions as our refuge. It's not just a matter of passively allowing and being present, and being the recipient of some deep inner or outer support, and then trusting that we don't have to do anything. Dharma practice is an active practice; there is doing that's part of it. Hopefully, what we're doing is learning how to act in ways that are wise, healthy, nourishing, and free of strain, obligation, pushing, and being busy, and free of conceit or self-consciousness. That self-consciousness is the equivalent of being self-preoccupied.

Action is very important in the teachings of the Buddha. So much so that in a few different locations, the Buddha is referred to in the ancient texts as a teacher of action. I guess there were spiritual teachers at his time who felt that actions were inconsequential, that no matter what you did, it didn't really have any long-term benefit, effect, or repercussions. Some people interpret that to mean you can just do whatever you wish, and it doesn't matter how immoral and unethical it is. Other teachers at the time of the Buddha said nothing matters, so you shouldn't do anything; radical non-doing is the way forward.

The Buddha had a teaching that some actions are worth doing and some are not worth doing. Over and over again you see in his teaching, sometimes very emphatically, when people asked him a question like, "Do you believe in restraint? Do you believe in non-action? Do you believe in this or that?" he would answer the question by saying, "I teach the doing of what is wholesome and the not doing of what is not wholesome."

In terms of restraint, he taught wholesome restraint, not restraint that is an unwholesome restraint. "Do you teach non-doing?" "I teach the non-doing of what is unwholesome, but not the non-doing of what is wholesome." "Do you teach that we should always do X?" He would say, "No, I teach you should always do what is wholesome, but you should avoid that which is unwholesome or unskillful."

I like to use the words helpful or unhelpful, or healthy and not healthy, for this distinction the Buddha makes repeatedly between the wholesome and the unwholesome. When we do wholesome things in a wholesome way, when we do beautiful things in a beautiful way, when we do ethical things in a way that doesn't harm ourselves or harm others, doing an ethical thing is actually a nourishing, beneficial thing. That is how actions can be our refuge.

Now, one of the actions that is emphasized in Buddhism is the action of straightforward, simple mindfulness—something that I consider synonymous with awareness. To be consciously, lucidly aware of our experience. Mindfulness has a quality in almost all ways it is taught: it is an awareness, a knowing, a recognition of what's happening that is not interfering with what's happening. It is allowing each thing to be seen clearly without us being entangled with it, without being caught in compulsions of desire or aversion for or against it. So one of the close synonyms or characteristics of mindfulness is letting things be.

Some people like to talk about a pause, even a sacred pause of mindfulness, so that we don't hurtle into the future, into the next moment, speeding along, going from one desire to another, reaching out, doing, or being so busy that the mind becomes claustrophobic or spinning. It's hard to notice even what we're doing because we act and talk even before we know what we're going to say or do. It can feel great that way because it can feel like we're free to just say whatever we want, we're free to just do whatever we want, and there are no limitations, no frustration. But in Buddhist language, that's not real freedom.

By pausing from the incessant, excessive activities of the mind, to pause for a moment provisionally so we really see what's happening here and let things be, we have a clear, deep, or full way of recognizing: "What I'm thinking, what I'm about to say, what I'm about to do is not really so wise, is not really so healthy, is not really so wholesome or skillful. Maybe I could not do it." Or we're sensitive enough to feel and know, "Oh, this is a wholesome thing, this is beneficial, this is nourishing."

So mindfulness practice has a passivity to it, if we're allowed to use that word, of making space, allowing, and learning to feel what's moving through us. Then as we live our lives, when we have to act, we're informed by a clear understanding of what is wholesome and unwholesome. The sacred pause of mindfulness, the space that we give to know what's here, gives us the opportunity to choose between those two—the sacred choice.

Buddhist practice definitely involves a degree of living a life of choice. Not because we're always busy and always having to analyze and figure out, but because we are deeply in touch, feeling, sensing, and connected to ourselves to recognize what is wholesome and unwholesome, what is helpful and not helpful, healthy and not healthy.

It becomes easier and more natural and easeful to go in the direction of health, to go in the direction of the wholesome, that which is nourishing for us. Over time, it's like a ball let loose on a hill that will roll downhill; over time, we will keep moving into what's wholesome because that's what our heart, our inner system, is leaning toward. It's not like being really busy and making all these choices all the time, but it's placing us in the place where choice can happen. Sometimes we make a conscious choice, and sometimes we can feel the wholesomeness within us is choosing: "This is what's good, this is what's helpful." And that becomes our refuge.

Because when we do what's wholesome—kind of synonyms in Buddhism for wholesome are what's beautiful, or what is dharmic. The word dharma here in this context means that which, if you look in the English Pali^[3] dictionaries, the English definition is what is morally good and what is connected to a good inner way of being, a goodness to it.

When we choose that, when we go in that direction of the good, the healthy, the beautiful, that supports us. It leads us to an inner growth of what's healthy and wholesome. It creates conditions that support the best in us to come forward and to live. It creates conditions for discovering greater and greater freedom, peace, love, and compassion. And it tends to support reciprocity.

Reproductive... [Laughter] Okay, I can't say it today. A way in which the world reciprocates. Not that it automatically or absolutely reciprocates, but the world tends to respond to wholesomeness and goodness with the same. The world becomes more and more of a refuge and a place of goodness for us when we enter the world in that way.

So the Buddha said our actions are our refuge, that they're so important to pay attention to. As I said, the Buddha, in addition to being a teacher of freedom, was a teacher of action. For the Buddha, those two are closely connected: the actions which are wholesome and nourishing are also the ones that lead us to the freedom that he was talking about, that support it. So we have actions as our refuge as well.

One of the deep principles of early Buddhism is: be a caretaker of your actions. Be a carer, a lover of your actions, in the sense that if you really love something, you want to do it the best possible way.

So you might consider for these next 24 hours: how is it that action, how do you know, how do you recognize how actions, your behavior, what you do can be a refuge for you? A support for you, a protection for you, a guide for you, a place of insight and deep understanding. You have actions as your refuge.

Thank you.