Guided Meditation: Attuned Aspiration; Dharmette: Joy of Compassion (4 of 5) Joy of Aspiration

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Attuned Aspiration; Joy of Compassion (4 of 5) Joy of Aspiration. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on August 24, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Attuned Aspiration

Good morning, good day. Welcome to this new day. Even if some of you are in an evening time zone, the idea that every day is new—that we wake up to discover what's new overnight—is a kind of ancient tradition. We wake up anew to something, a new world.

Today the topic is aspiration. It belongs to a family of mental activities. On one end, it can be planning or expecting—what we're inspired for, inspired to work for. Somewhere in the middle of that may be intention, which is the midpoint of that family, if it's a kind of range or spectrum. But intention can lend itself to expectation, to trying hard, to trying to get something. To intend to do something doesn't have to be like that; there can be an intention for how we want to be right now in this moment. We would like to be kind—that's the intention, and then it's immediate, as opposed to a plan for the future.

But I like the word aspiration because it's closely connected to the word inspiration. Intention can be dry. Aspiration comes from some deeper place within, as something that's inspiring for us. Something which is in the inspiration, in the aspiration—something that feels nurturing or nourishing for us. There's a goodness to aspiration. I don't know if it works for other people who speak English, but for me, aspiration always has an ethical quality, a wholesome quality. What do we aspire for?

Here I want to offer you an analogy for having a nourishing aspiration for meditation. That is the image or the sense of the way in which sunlight enables a forest to grow in the springtime, maybe a deciduous forest. The speed, the calm, the patience, the gentleness, maybe even the many times imperceptible changes of the way the forest grows in the sunlight.

So in our aspiration, the Dharma^[1] can grow in us. It's not a Dharma that we see moment by moment. It's not a Dharma that we force, or are measuring moment by moment, asking, "Am I there yet?" But rather, we're allowing ourselves to take in the goodness of our aspiration—the aspiration^[2] to be present in a way that is free. Present in a way that is kind and appreciative. Present in a way that is deeply attuned to ourselves. Present in a way where there's a heightened awareness that is like the sunlight growing a forest.

So assuming a meditation posture, and becoming aware of yourself here and now. Sitting in a particular place at this time. Become aware of meditating here in this body, in all its dimensions, all its sensations.

If it's comfortable for you, you can close your eyes. Maybe with a sense of invitation, invite your body to breathe a bit deeper, fuller. To exhale a bit longer, relaxing as you exhale.

And let your breathing return to normal. On the exhale, letting your attention roam around your body, finding places to relax, to soften in your body.

And then letting your breathing return to normal, consider an aspiration for being here, present in meditation, mindful. One that has an inspiration for you. One that doesn't excite you, but one that enlivens you. It inspires you with a kind of calm presence, of sunlight on a forest.

An aspiration for an appreciative awareness. A forgiving awareness. Maybe a kind, loving, or caring awareness. An aspiration to be present with a freedom that leaves everything alone. Whatever we're aware of, we give it its freedom. Freedom from our own clingings, aversions, and judgments. Aspiring to bring freedom to all things.

If you can find an aspiration for being present that's inspiring, let that be a light that shines upon your practice of mindfulness. Let it inform how you're present each time you're here and now with your experience. Let it be informed and inspired by your aspiration.

[Silence]

The words aspiration and inspiration come from the Latin words for breathing, like respiration. May every breath come with an aspiration that helps you to grow your practice, the way sunlight helps a forest to grow.

[Silence]

And then as we come to the end of this meditation, change your aspiration. Aspire for the welfare and happiness of the world, of others. To somehow turn yourself inside out, so your care and your mindfulness takes in the people, the beings around you. And may there be a peaceful aspiration that's like sunlight, an early morning light, sunlight at dawn that awakens and spreads goodness and care into the world.

Aspiring for the welfare and happiness of all: May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

May we find ways today to live this aspiration. May we benefit the world today, even in the smallest ways.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Joy of Compassion (4 of 5) Joy of Aspiration

Hello everyone, and welcome to this fourth talk on the joy of compassion. Today's aspect of compassion that can bring joy is aspiration. We've had awareness, attunement, appreciation, and today, aspiration.

This is often closely tied to compassion, in that compassion includes a wish for the welfare and happiness of others, for people to not suffer, to have their suffering be lifted. There is a wish, but to call that wish an aspiration has different connotations. A wish could be wishful thinking. There can be a wish without anything behind it or any depth. It could be a wish because we're upset, and we want things to be different because we don't want to be upset.

An aspiration comes from a deep place within, and it's a more holistic part of who we are. It comes from some kind of depth within. At least I associate aspiration with a^[3] profound, holistic, organic sense of goodness, something we want that's inspiring for us and maybe for others. In the inspiration of it, there's a kind of pleasure, there's a joy, there's a delight, because it's something that we really feel good about. We're delighted and we're happy with it.

So to aspire to meet the suffering of the world. Aspire to feel it and sense it, not to be overwhelmed by it, but to be a supporting witness. Not just a supporting witness, but even more so, to be a contributor to welfare and happiness. To make a difference in this world of suffering, to make a difference for the person we're with who's suffering.

That aspiration can take many forms; it's contextual. In the rush to be compassionate, the rush to compassionate action, we often miss what's mostly needed for people. Sometimes if someone is starving, you might think to rush to get them food. But maybe, deeper, what they're starving for is human contact, human respect, and care. To stop and to be with a person, and offer friendship, understanding, and companionship before providing the food. Or, together with providing the food^[4]. Then we're really offering what the person needs, something that's deeper for them.

And in being this deeper source from within ourselves, it nourishes ourselves at the same time. Compassion is not all about taking care of the other; it's also, in a certain kind of way, caring for ourselves. The more our aspiration can come in, nourishing for ourselves, the more we have to give others. The more we can connect with them and have a kind of presence that is its own food, its own benefit for others, where we offer appreciation, attunement, and respect.

So take the time to clarify: What is our wish here? What is our intention? What is our aspiration in offering others compassionate care? Is there an aspiration which inspires us? Simply the wish to give people food might be good, it might be a little bit inspiring, but I think of it as closer to the surface of the situation. To offer some deep human connection where we feel safe, where we feel inspired by the connection that we can establish—then we are nourished. We are supported by that connection as much as the person we're caring for.

It's a kind of mutuality. Aspiration, coming from this deep place, brings a mutuality of benefit, a mutuality of love, care, or respect, of benefit to everyone. So it's not so transactional. It's not so much, "I'm doing it for you," but maybe more, "I'm doing it for all of us, for both of us. We're doing it together in a sense."

That's where the deep attunement and appreciation can support the idea that we're not only doing compassion for others; we're doing it also at the same time, simultaneously doing something that's really nourishing and beneficial for ourselves. That's the potential of wholesome compassion—that we benefit from it as well. One of those benefits is a kind of joy, a kind of sweetness, a delight, a sense of well-being, or a sense of deeper intimacy or connectivity.

The sense of being at home here in this feeling of compassion. At home in this feeling of being alive with someone else. So that what we're sharing is also, maybe by osmosis, a transmission that there is a way of being in this world where we feel deeply at home. We feel like, "Here I am, here I belong, here I'm at ease, here is my peace. Here I meet you with a profound sense of belonging, of freedom, of peace, here and now, without any anxiety or needing things to be different."

Of course, with compassion, we are trying to make things different—to make the suffering different. But something different happens if we don't need to make a difference, but the desire to do so arises not from need, but from aspiration. Not from requirements and what we have to do, but rather from something closer to generosity, closer to the heart's wish. Of course we do this.

So aspiration is a very important part of compassion, and it's much more than just a desire. Giving some care, some attention to our aspiration, to our intention, so that we get the most benefit out of it.

I'll say it this way: an aspiration is a check and balance for how we behave in the world. It's so easy to behave through our selfishness, through our desire, our clingings, cravings, attachments, aversions, and our fears. It's so easy to have bias and stereotypes of the situation and jump to assumptions about things. But if the aspiration is a beautiful aspiration, something that's universal, something we would offer equally to everyone, then we might be more likely to notice that we're holding ourselves back, or we're tight, resisting, pushing away, or we have judgments or negative views of what's going on that get in the way of an unbiased flow of generosity in our compassion.

Where our compassion is not unduly influenced by anything within us that interferes with its universality or cleanliness. Cleanliness in that it's free of prejudice, free of bias, free of conceit. Free of the kinds of tensions involved if status is involved, or control, or dominance, or fear. Or a kind of diminishing ourselves as we do it, or a sense of excessive responsibility where we get kind of tight and forceful. If an aspiration is universal, it inspires, it allows something deep within us to relax, and that becomes a reference point for seeing how we're off with our compassion.

It certainly is easy to be slightly off, or very much off, so that the compassion is influenced by all kinds of unfortunate ways in which we might relate to the world, sometimes unconscious ways. So to stay in touch, this is where feeling our body, being embodied, helps. That's why I love the word aspiration, because coming from breathing, it's a kind of embodied profundity within us. If we're in touch with this body of ours, the body will provide us with clues that we're tensing, resisting, closing down, being partial, being too assertive, or dominating. The body expresses this in all these little micro muscles we have.

To feel and sense these operating becomes a check and balance, becomes a protection of our compassion, so it can remain coming from aspiration. As soon as it comes from duty or obligation, as soon as it overrides the ways in which we're getting exhausted, tired, resistant, the ways in which we feel oppressed, troubled, or stressed by it—if we override that, then compassion is not sustainable. It becomes exhausting, it becomes stressful, it can even become unhealthy for us.

Some people have compassion fatigue. Some wonderfully compassionate people go about their compassion in very difficult circumstances in life, and it has a long-lasting legacy of stress, anxiety, fear, or grief that builds slowly, imperceptibly over time because of the tremendous human challenges to which we bring our compassion. People suffer dramatically, horrible things happen to people, and being a caretaker for that can take a big toll on the caretaker if we don't find that place of aspiration where there's a joy or a lightness, a nourishment from which we can do the compassion.

If the aspiration is not nourishing, if the joy, the lightness, or the sweetness is not there, that's an indication that probably what we should do is rest. Probably what we should do is get a break to be renewed, to be refreshed. The Middle Way^[5] is the way of Buddhism. Not too much and not too little. Not forcing ourselves so we end up being overstressed, over-activated, over-energized. And not so that we become slothful, resistant, or sink back into ourselves. We want to maintain that Middle Way.

For that, we need aspiration and rest, aspiration and renewal, aspiration and action in the world, so that we find the place that's sustainable over time. If the compassion is a little bit off, or very much off, it's not sustainable.

So the suggestion is aspiration. The depth and profundity of what aspiration can be can be a source of joy and a source of protection for our compassion. So please spend time looking deeply at your intention, the motivation, the aspiration that is part and parcel of compassion. To do so on the foundation of awareness, attunement, and appreciation helps that aspiration fulfill its potential.

So thank you very much. I have one more talk tomorrow on the action part, the joy of compassionate action. Thank you.