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Guided Meditation: Re-Collecting; Dharmette: Don't Make it Worse (2 of 5) Organizing - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on September 03, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Re-Collecting

Welcome to the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City. I'm sitting here in our meditation hall and am happy to do so, and to be with all of you.

Some of you are familiar with a very common metaphor used in the secular mindfulness movement and in mindfulness schools. They will take a container of water and glitter—like a snow globe—shake everything up, and then watch as all the sediment, dust, and sparkles settle. As it settles, you see clearly what is there; the water becomes clear.

Another way of saying the same thing—which is not so much a settling, though calming down is wonderful—is that in this practice, we also want to give time for the self-organizing movement of our body and minds. As awareness wakes up, and as we become more aware of what is happening here and now, the idea is that we are integrating and including everything that we are.

If we take time to feel and sense into our bodies, to wake up our bodies, to feel what is happening emotionally, and to recognize what is happening in our mind, there is something about the simple recognition and waiting that allows it to be there in the field of attention. We allow it to be there while sensing it, especially in a physical way—sensing the "embodiedness" of it. Even with a mind caught up in thoughts and ideas, we can ask: What is the physicality? What is the feeling? What are the sensations in the head and the brain that go along with that?

This begins to make space for the sediment to settle, but more importantly, it allows things to re-collect. There is a re-collection that happens, a reorganizing, a coming together. We start getting put back together. It is not that we pull ourselves together, but the system—our psychophysical system—is pulling itself together. It is a remarkable process of waking up where we become whole. It is a remarkable process by which we get re-collected and reunified by waiting for it to happen, and making time for it to happen.

This is self-organizing rather than "self" organizing—meaning, it is not "you" doing the organizing or pulling everything together. We are sitting up, we are staying here, and just sensing and feeling into it so we get organized or oriented with all of who we are here.

This is a powerful thing to do because otherwise, we are partial. Otherwise, we might be ahead of ourselves, caught up in some concern, or pushed around by the winds of the world¹. We might be pushed around by our fear, hatred, desires, or anger. They take the lead and we become partial; only part of us is driving the show. For a wise life, we don't want to have any one thing driving the show. We want everything to be on the stage, working together in a whole.

Part of mindfulness and meditation is to be present for all of who we are, allowing a natural process of self-organizing, reorganizing, and coming together. It brings it all here, and it doesn't require much except being present, being attentive, and feeling into it.

Assume a posture that is the right posture for you, one that gives you a chance to begin sensing and feeling as much of the whole of who you are in a balanced, full way. If you are slouching too much, it may be fine to relax that way, but it doesn't really allow for everything to become alive and vital. Relaxing too much is too much settling and not enough reorganizing into a living field of your humanity.

If you are sitting, sit up a little bit more upright. If you are lying down, maybe there is some way to adjust your spine, how your shoulder blades are against the surface, or switch how your hands and arms are placed. Sometimes having your legs bent with your feet closer to your body can give a feeling of being more engaged in the fullness of yourself.

Lower your gaze and gently close your eyes.

This process of feeling, sensing, and giving time to know what is here without needing to fix anything can begin when you take a few long, slow, deep breaths. On the inhale, feel the stronger sensations in the torso that come from deep expansion. Then, on the exhale, soften and relax the body, the shoulders, and the belly. Maybe the rib cage can relax and settle. If there is a place where the weight of your torso is most centered, maybe that place can relax and drop a tiny bit as you exhale.

Let your breathing return to normal. With the exhale, relax more. Physically relaxing gives time and space to feel more fully. As you relax on the exhale, feel that part of your body a little bit more as you inhale.

Relax your face.

Relax the shoulders on the exhale, and feel the shoulders on the inhale. The attitude as you feel the shoulders is one of inclusion—allowing yourself to feel and sense how it is without needing it to be different. But then, as you exhale, you can make it a little bit different: soften and relax in the shoulders.

Do the same with the chest. Relax the chest, the heart center. Feel it all on the inhale as if it has permission to be that way. Just know it, as if in the knowing and feeling you are allowing the self-organizing movement of the body.

Gently, without trying too hard, on the exhale soften the belly. In this case, as you breathe in, both feel the belly but see if there can continue to be a little softening of the belly. On the exhale and on the inhale, keep it soft.

Become aware of a global awareness of your body. Not trying too hard, but being content to have the widest sense and feeling of being in a body here. Maybe your attention gently roams around the body. Maybe there is a panoramic sense of the body.

As you exhale, let the body relax and soften. As you inhale, feel and allow the sensations of the body. As you feel the global, panoramic body, you don't have to direct your attention anywhere. It can be almost like a surprise, the sensations that the body shows. And as you exhale, gently soften and relax without ambition or trying too hard. A light touch.

[Silence]

Feel your body on the inhale. Settle the body on the exhale. Maybe you can feel the settling as a gathering, a re-collecting of all parts of the body into the whole—the global body—where the self-organizing ability of the body has an opportunity to include everything, even what is uncomfortable.

[Silence]

Mindfulness has a lot to do with remembering to be present. Re-collecting. Remembering the parts together.

Fuller awareness of the body on the inhale, allowing it all to re-collect as you settle on the exhale.

[Silence]

As we come to the end of the sitting, one more time: on the inhale, feel the whole body—an expansion, a growing of attention outward. Then, beyond the body—not necessarily to feel what is beyond, but to open and be available to feel and sense the world around you.

There is a way, when we take time to feel, sense, and be aware of what is happening, that allows for a reorganizing, a coming together, and becoming more whole. That also allows others to become more themselves. It allows others to collect and be themselves more fully, so people are not in conflict with themselves or in conflict with the world in such a way that they become divided in themselves, cut off from part of themselves.

May it be that the practice that we do supports others to be whole. Supports others to be aware of the fullness of who they are—collected, organized, unified, undivided—and in that way, to be free.

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

May the way that we are whole and inclusive—where all of who we are is included here—help others to feel free and safe.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Don't Make it Worse (2 of 5) Organizing

Hello and welcome to this second talk on "Not Making It Worse."

One of the principles of mindfulness practice is, in a wise and particular way, to not avoid or turn away from things, but rather to turn towards them and compost them—transform them if they are unhealthy, inappropriate, or somehow off.

Symbolically, we are doing this this week with the word "WORSE." That is what we want to avoid doing: making it worse. But there is the art of actually turning towards what is "worse," and in doing so, to become wise about it, to allow it to change, to allow it to not run us or be in charge of us, and to find our freedom and maybe even transform it into something that is much better.

We are taking the word WORSE and, rather than avoiding it, turning towards it and making it into an acronym for something that is better.

Yesterday, the W was presented as Wait. Be patient, give time, wait, and allow. Really take time in the waiting for something to change and move. That helps us understand better how to respond and what to do; it helps us take in the bigger picture.

The second letter for today, the O, is to Organize.

To organize ourselves, or orient ourselves to the fullness and wholeness of who we are.

If we are caught up in activities that are making a situation worse—for example, if we are angry, filled with greed, or caught up in a lot of anxiety—that tends to contract and narrow the focus of attention to the particular thing we are concerned about. It might be thoughts, stories, and imaginations that are producing the fear, anger, hatred, or strong greed. It might be the feeling of the emotions, or the sensations of those emotions themselves, or those impulses and motivations which have us narrowed and caught up.

In that state, people become partial. All of us is not included. The instruction is to wait, and then allow the system to organize—to allow the different parts that have been disconnected because we are narrowed, tight, ignoring, or pretending to reconnect. Sometimes there are difficult emotions or difficult states of mind that we don't want to look at, and we are trying to override them by doing activities that distract us. But those difficulties, the tensions that we carry with us, are still there, and we are just happily ignoring them. The more we can be distracted by doing exciting or fascinating things, the more relief we get because we are successfully avoiding what is happening.

The idea of avoiding who we are keeps us partial. It keeps us not collected as a whole. But when we can become more whole—when we are aware of the fullness of all the different parts of ourselves—then we have more information. We have more understanding. We have more capacity to respond wisely; to respond in ways that are beneficial for ourselves and for others because we start knowing what is beneficial.

Where am I hurt? Where am I afraid? How do I now include this in a wise way? What is my greed? What is my desire? What is driving that? And maybe there is a wise way to respond to that. Where is my fear? How can I be wise, engaged, and fully here in the situation—making my being safe, but also being present wholly to it?

This is organizing. What happens when we start getting organized—meaning we start collecting and gathering together all of who we are so we can all be here in the wholeness? If you allow me to use the image of the "basket of awareness," or the cupped hands of awareness that gently holds all of who we are, then things have a chance to organize, shift around, and gather together.

We have a remarkable ability for self-healing. Just like a cut on a hand or a finger will self-heal if we allow it to—if we keep it clean and don't interfere with that healing process—all kinds of difficult emotions, sadness, and grief can be self-healing if we allow them to have space and not interfere. If we don't believe the story, push it away, or be aversive to it, there is a whole inner process that can operate for us that moves us towards psychological and spiritual health, if we can learn the art of holding it all in a wider field of awareness.

So, for today, I call this: Giving time for us to get organized.

Pulling ourselves together, putting ourselves together again after being discombobulated, stressed, or disconnected from ourselves. Reconnect.

The important thing that can happen there, as I've said, is we get to have much more information. We tend to be wiser. We tend to connect to deeper sources of understanding within us as we get more collected. If we are narrow, uncollected, fragmented, and discombobulated, the source of our understanding tends to be coming out of the reactivity itself. It comes out of beliefs we hold that can feel very real and very true but are partial, narrow—maybe projections, fantasies, or made-up ideas. We don't really see fully what is happening.

Not a few times I have had ideas about other people where those ideas seemed so true. Maybe some of it actually was true because I was picking up a particular part of a person. But as I became re-collected, settled myself, more organized, and pulled myself together, lo and behold, I was able to see the other person as whole as well. I was able to see more of the person than the particular small little lens that I was so focused on, as if that was the whole person.

It becomes a gift that we can give the whole world when we take time to allow the system to get organized and collected.

The way that mindfulness works is we don't have to be the one who does the re-collecting, except in being aware of what is here. It is the awareness of what is here—feeling, being present, sensing, "Oh, here too."

One of the tools for this is breathing. As we stay with the breathing, it is one of the ways that we are less caught up in our thoughts, less caught up in our narrow world of projections and preoccupations. We are less fixated on particular motivations, orientations, or emotions. There is something about the simplicity of breathing—not always, but sometimes—that can help free us from the preoccupations of the mind just enough that we start taking in more of what is happening here.

Then, with that breathing, there can be the art of letting the breathing begin to massage the body, or help us feel more connected to the body, to settle and relax into the body. So much of this process of reorganizing is an embodied process. The more we can take time to sense and be with the body, the more the system comes into a whole.

If we try to think our way into the whole, if we try to just use our mental powers to imagine it, then it doesn't really happen. If we become whole and organized as a collective, it has to include our body. And it is not our raw bones and muscles body; it is the body of our nervous system. It is the body that allows us to sense, feel, and interact with all its different parts. It spreads out through all these nerves that we have throughout the body. It is how we experience the body.

As soon as we are tuned into how we are experiencing the body, we are tuned into this amazing network of nerves, this amazing net of ways that information, understanding, and wisdom operates in this system of ours. Being aware of your body is not just being aware of a hunk of flesh; it is becoming aware of this amazing nervous system that spreads throughout the body and is intelligent. Probably we should think of it as as intelligent as the brain—or, collectively organized together, the whole expansive sense of the nervous system in the body, the network of nerves together with our brain, creates far greater intelligence because the nervous system is also becoming whole.

So: Wait and Organize.

Take time to let yourself get reorganized, pull yourself together, settle in, and wake up in the body. That is the second way to not make it worse.

If you take just that time to do that, then you are certainly not acting on what makes it worse. You are pausing. But you are doing something even more important: you are beginning to gather yourself together so more of this wisdom, empathy, compassion, and loving-kindness that we can have for our common humanity has a chance to operate. We become less likely to make the situation worse.

Thank you. I hope that you explore in these next 24 hours how you can go through the day to take these sacred pauses—sacred times of waiting. Not just to wait and endure, but to wait so you can feel more of what is happening here for yourself. This self-organizing way in which we become more complete can be a wonderful discovery for you and a benefit.

Thank you.