This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Mindful Recognition

Warm greetings and welcome to our meditation session together. The basic practice we're doing here is mindfulness practice. I think I've said this recently—it's a common enough expression or cliché that mindfulness is easy; what is difficult is remembering to do it. The idea of staying in the flow of present-moment experience by being aware of it is at the heart of mindfulness practice. Being aware means many things, and maybe people are aware in different ways, but there are different aspects of awareness. One of the aspects of awareness—one quality, characteristic, or way of being aware—is to know, to recognize what is happening in the moment.

The art of mindfulness is to keep that recognition simple, to recognize what is obvious or observable in the moment. It's not a matter of digging and looking for something special or the underlying cause of something. When we practice mindfulness, it's just staying with the obvious: what appears to us, what is observable in any of our senses, perceivable in the moment. But then, we have to know it and recognize it.

One of the things you might try in this meditation session is to emphasize the recognition part. It is often done with a single word. If you're breathing in, you recognize it as "in." It's not like automatic pilot, and it's not like you're directing yourself to inhale by saying "in." It's almost as if the inhale begins, and then because it's perceivable, we recognize it: "inhale," or just "in" as a shorthand. If there's an itch, you don't have to analyze the itch and why it's there or wonder if you have poison oak. It's just to notice: "itch." The simplicity of recognition.

It can be easy to overlook how powerful it is, this simple act of recognition. In this meditation, you might try to see if you can discover how simple an act of recognition can be and how it supports you in being rooted in the present moment. If there's a thought, not just know you're thinking, but have a clear, crisp, or definitive recognition: "Oh, that is thinking. There is thinking now." It doesn't have to be that long; it could just be "thinking." But it is the equivalent of saying, "Oh, I really see this. Oh, that's what's happening." Even if it's completely mundane, like hearing a sound, you just recognize: "That's a sound."

If we really give ourselves over to that recognition, something frees up, something becomes more spacious. We are less preoccupied and caught in our concerns. We are less in the stream of thinking. Again and again, it's almost like we take a pause to recognize this, and then we take a pause to recognize the next thing. There's no hurry to recognize as many things as you need to. It's more about the quality of clear recognition. How does that work for you, and how can you do it so it doesn't feel like work? It doesn't feel like a strain to do it; you actually feel the benefits of it. You feel how it puts you in the present moment more fully.

That is the task of this meditation. If you find that doing the exercise is agitating, then you clearly recognize: "Oh, that is agitation." There's a calming in that recognition. There's a spaciousness, even a freedom in the clear recognition. It's kind of like, "Oh, that's what it is," and we make room. Then the next thing arises: "That's what it is." It might be the same thing over and over again, but met with clear recognition.

To set the ground for that, assume a meditation posture, maybe one that's familiar to you, so that the familiarity supports a welcoming feeling of being here and present. You might close your eyes and take a few long, deep, relaxed breaths. Breathing in, and relaxing as you exhale. Breathing in, and settling into your body as you exhale.

Letting your breathing return to normal. Relax the shoulders. Soften on the exhale, softening the shoulder blades. Relaxing so the shoulder blades can roll down the back, slide down. Relaxing and softening the belly.

And then, to begin the practice of clear recognition: recognize in the simplest way you can, the most direct and obvious way, how you are right now. Recognize it a few times and see if there's something about how you recognize that is not a duty; it's not forced or work. It's simply a very simple act of recognizing, of pausing. Pausing and recognizing almost as an act of generosity. It allows each thing that's recognized to be itself.

Recognizing how you are in your body. Recognizing the predominant sensations of your body as you're here now. Recognizing the sensations of breathing. If you use a single word for that recognition, and if you do it clearly and fully, hopefully it is a quieting of the thinking mind, not a triggering of more thoughts.

Continue with your breathing, and if something else becomes predominant, recognize it. Recognizing how it's obvious, observable, and doing so in a way that recognition is beneficial for your meditation. One observation after another. If you are involved with the flow of thoughts, you probably are not recognizing the moment. Clear recognition.

As we come to the end of the sitting, perhaps there can be a clear recognition of goodwill. A clear recognition of a place inside of you that's the location or the source for kindness, friendliness, care, love, compassion. And even if you don't feel it at the moment, perhaps you can clearly recognize the place, the location within. A tenderness, a gentleness, a warmth, an openness.

If you direct that openness and tenderness to the world, perhaps you can see the world with kind eyes. To look upon the world with a kind regard. Be generous in your eyesight. And considering that we're coming to the end of the meditation, to aspire in some way—maybe small, maybe big—that on this day you contribute to the simple welfare, well-being, and happiness of others. Not in big dramatic ways, but maybe just with simple gestures: a smile, a greeting, an inquiry into how they are, and your ability to listen well as they answer.

May it be that this meditation practice we do spreads from our meditation community out into the communities around us in the form of welfare and goodwill for all beings. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may we contribute to the welfare and happiness of this world.

Dharmette: Clear Recognition (1 of 5) Power of Recognition

Good day on this Monday, the end of June. The theme that I want to discuss this week is clear comprehension. The Pali word is sampajañña^[1]. Jāna in this context means "to know," and the pa of pajāna is an emphatic prefix, so it means "to really know." Sam, I believe, here means something like "with." So, "with clear knowing" or "really knowing."

It's an important quality of mindfulness practice. Sometimes it's translated as clear comprehension, sometimes clear knowing, or clear recognition—the "clear" being the emphatic idea behind it. Part of the art of mindfulness is to learn the power of recognition.

In some cultures I've been to, people won't tell strangers their birth name. They have a nickname that they go by, because it is said that their birth name has some power to it, and if you give it too easily to other people, then somehow they can have power over you. It's something you want to be very careful with.

Many of us can have the experience of naming something. Naming what's happening is to very simply describe or characterize what's happening in the moment. Other people aren't noticing, and we say, "Oh, that's what's happening. Oh, I see, that's how it is." Sometimes we do that for ourselves. I've felt off sometimes, and I didn't know quite why I felt off or why something was not quite right. Then, at some point, I recognized that I was sad about something. In recognizing the sadness—"Oh, that's what's happening, I'm sad"—with this clear recognition, it's like the clouds parted, and something becomes obvious and clear. The way in which things are cloudy or murky clears up. "Oh, that's what's happening."

Mindfulness practice involves two primary attentional faculties (and others as well, but the two primary ones are sati^[2] and sampajañña). Sati, which is often translated as mindfulness, I think is maybe more useful to translate as awareness. Sampajañña is clear recognition. Mindfulness practice is the combination of those two. To be really present, to have a present-moment awareness, a present-moment attunement to what's happening here and now. The ability to receive, to perceive through the sense doors. The senses—the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the tactile senses, and also the mind door—are all open so that we can receive or perceive what's going on in a way that is not thoughtful. It doesn't necessarily involve recognition; it's almost like pre-recognition, just being with the experience. That's sati.

Then, clear recognition is the clear knowing of what that is. The combination of those two is mindfulness. In modern definitions, mindfulness is often presented as knowing what's happening in a non-reactive way. This is often called sati, but it is actually closer to this thing called sampajañña—clear recognition.

As I implied in the guided meditation, it's an invaluable art to learn how to call forth our capacity to clearly recognize even what is most obvious. It's easy to be dismissive of what's obvious, like that in-breath, that out-breath, or feeling tingling or warmth in our body. These are little details that seem like they don't warrant much attention. But what warrants attention and engagement is this capacity we have to clearly recognize.

Clear recognition is closely related to freedom. Freedom from preoccupation, freedom from reactivity, freedom from closing down around something because of a bias or a judgment. Rather, the recognition is opening to possibility, opening to being present. The art is figuring out how to recognize very simply. To recognize that I feel warm and tingly, and to recognize it not with a lot of baggage and association about what it means, but to recognize it as pausing to open to experience it more. "Oh, warm and tingly, what's that like?"

Like right now, I'm seeing the camera that you're all behind. There's a moment of seeing, of recognition. I've been here now for over half an hour looking in the direction of the camera at times, but until this moment, I hadn't really clearly recognized it. It stands out a little bit in highlight, and it's more like, "Oh, look at that," as opposed to, "Oh no, the camera." "Oh, it's a camera." And I have a monitor underneath it so I can see what's happening here on the chats. I see the light and the color. Now I feel thirsty, so I clearly recognize the thirst, and then maybe do something about it.

There's a story in my book called The Monastery Within^[3]. It's a story about a very famous sage who lives deep in the mountains. There are no roads that take you there, just some mountain trails. The person has a reputation of having just the right thing for everybody. If you go tell this person your troubles and your challenges, everyone leaves satisfied. They feel like, "That was perfect for me." You'd think he must have great intuition, great understanding.

People would make the trek. Sometimes it would take three days of hiking into the mountains and three days out. Because some people were really desperate to find support and help for their challenges in life, they made that trek. When they found him, the sage would sit and listen. Sometimes he'd listen for 15 minutes, sometimes an hour or hours, as people unloaded and told the stories that concerned them. The sage didn't say much, but just took it all in.

At some point, the person would stop talking. Then the sage would nod, indicating he now wanted to think deeply about this and reflect, and come up with some really wise thing. But before he would say his words, there was always a requirement: what he said would not be told to anyone else; it was just very personal for that person.

It turns out he always said the same thing to everyone. The thing he always said was, "What are you not paying attention to? What are you not recognizing?"

People were often disappointed that that was all he had to say, but they gave him the benefit of the doubt and left. They had to spend three days hiking out of the mountain, and it would echo in their minds: "What are you not recognizing?" Over those three days, all kinds of possibilities, all kinds of things they hadn't been noticing came up. By the time they came out of the mountains, they were transformed. They had received something powerful that had changed them for the better.

This is the power of recognition. When we sit and meditate, to clearly not only be present for the experience but to recognize it. To do it in a way that's relaxing, that's calming as opposed to agitating, but to do it in a way that is so clear that we're no longer being swept along in the mind-stream of thoughts, or mired and absorbed in the world of emotions. It's almost like taking a step back out of the mud, out of the mire, out of the preoccupation. Stepping out of it and looking back at it and saying, "Oh, preoccupation, thinking. This is thinking," or "Anger, sadness. This is anger, this is sadness."

The art is to explore and use the recognition until you really feel the freedom, the separation—not aloofness or distance, but a separation where we're not caught in something. There is release. Then mindfulness, that awareness of being present, has a whole different quality of movement, and it can do its work. It can unfold best when we're not lost in the stream of thought or the stream of emotion.

Clear recognition, that's the theme for this week. I'll talk about different aspects of clear recognition. For these next 24 hours, you might experiment with seeing if you can discover some of the power of recognition, how it's supportive and helpful. Look at how you can recognize what's happening, even what's obvious, even what you already know but haven't really recognized. See what it's like to really stop, pause, and recognize. And if you care to, you could also carry with you the sage's question: "What are you not recognizing?" and see if that's interesting for you.

Thank you all very much, and I look forward to this week together with you.