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Guided Meditation: Calm, Wholesome Awareness; Dharmette: Four Truths of Happiness (3 of 4) Maintaining Happiness. - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 21, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Calm, Wholesome Awareness

Welcome to our meditation. To support the teachings that will follow, I would like to emphasize staying close to something that is wholesome—something that feels healthy for you in terms of how you are aware.

Sometimes I talk about calm awareness. Some people might talk about non-contentious awareness, or an awareness that makes room for what is here—breathing room. It is an awareness that is very simple, warm, and kind. It is an awareness that is equanimous with whatever goes on, not caught, entangled, or reactive to what we are aware of.

Find a way of being aware, being mindful—recognizing, knowing, sensing, and feeling what is happening—in a way that feels good and nice for you. Then, stay close to that. Maintain it. Be in touch with it. Use it as a guide. Use it as the bow of the boat moving through the water in a nice, clean way. Have it be like the pedals of your bike that you are always in touch with, always moving. Let it be like petting a cat—the hand going down, gently and lovingly petting the cat. We might feel depressed or angry, but it feels good to pet the cat.

Let's see if we can find a way to be aware that keeps us connected.

Close your eyes, assume your meditation posture, and relax. Soften. Let there be a gentling of your body. With every exhale, soften and relax in your body.

Then, soften and relax your mind—your thinking mind, your thinking activity. Soften around any agitation or tension in your mind. Allow a gentling of the mind.

And gentling the heart. Softly, kindly, calmly approach the heart—your feeling heart—with whatever way you are feeling. As you exhale, allow a softening, an opening, a settling of the heart.

Become aware of your breathing, but be aware of it lightly and softly. It is almost as if you are walking in the park with a friend, talking, and you are lightly aware of the trees around you. It is that kind of very light awareness of breathing. The friend to be talking with, to pay attention to, is awareness itself—how you are mindful.

There are a number of ways to be mindful. It can just be a general feeling of being present, being aware. Or it could be acts of recognition, knowing what is happening. It could be feeling and sensing through your body, or all of the above.

See if the way that you can be in the present—know the present, be aware in the present, be awake in the present—can feel healthy. Can it feel good? Can it feel satisfying, calm, non-contentious, open, and receptive?

Then, with that awareness—as if awareness is like a warm friend—settle the awareness on the body breathing. The continuity of breathing is the means by which you can stay with a continuity of gentle, calm awareness of the present. Like you would if you were petting a cat: you might feel all kinds of difficult emotions, but part of you would be petting the cat gently, softly, supporting the cat to purr. You might be feeling all kinds of things now, but let how you are aware of the rhythm of breathing—the coming and going of in-breath and out-breath—stay in touch with a calm awareness. Find some way of being aware that feels healthy or wholesome. Or like you are pedaling on a bike gently, happily through the park—there is a continuity of moving the legs, having contact with the pedals.

With breathing as the subject of awareness, focus on letting awareness be present: calm, open, receptive, warmhearted, and kind. In whatever way is easy for you, stay close to a way of being aware and present that feels good to you, that you enjoy. Enjoy the simplicity.

Maybe a small smile will add a flavor of goodness or joy to being aware.

It is quite common for people to be absorbed in the object of awareness—the object of their thinking, what they are aware of, what they are thinking about. In the practice of mindfulness, we are shifting the balance so that half of our attention is on the quality of our attention itself. That half of attention that goes to awareness can become second nature. It becomes a way of staying connected to a nourishing way to be awake, to be present, to be here.

That fifty percent attention to how we are aware actually allows us to be more aware of others, the people in our lives. It is as if our capacity to be present for people increases. There is more room, more sensitivity, more care.

May it be so that this practice of meditation, this practice of mindfulness, is a training in increasing our capacity for present-moment awareness. So we can have this nourishing, open attention to take in, feel, and know others in a wise, balanced way. And in so doing, to feel a deeper connection, a deeper sense of a shared humanity, and a deeper sense of people's challenges. Then our care, our love, our warmth, and our friendship can be more present.

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 that possibility.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Four Truths of Happiness (3 of 4) Maintaining Happiness.

Hello and welcome to this third talk that I am calling the "Four Truths of Happiness." They are a complement to the Buddhist teachings on the Four Noble Truths of suffering¹, which I talked about last week.

The two pairs of four complement and parallel each other. One of the things they have in common—kind of at the center of them—is that they concern our contribution to our state of mind, state of heart, or state of being.

The Four Noble Truths have to do with how we contribute to what is called suffering, dukkha, or emotional pain. It is not necessarily all emotional pain, but that emotional pain which we do, in fact, contribute to. That contribution is summarized in the word "craving" or "thirsting"—having a thirst for stuff, a kind of compulsive desire. As long as this compulsive desire is operating, there is frustration, expectation, tension, and stress. More elaborate things begin happening around that compulsive desire, building layers and layers of identities, stories, and realities that we live in. We want to be careful and see how we contribute to the suffering—our role. We don't ignore the role of others or situations, but if we at least take care of our contribution, it makes a worldly difference.

For the Four Truths of Happiness, we also have a contribution to make. We don't just leave our happiness to chance, hoping that the world will somehow provide it for us—hoping that something "out there" will do it if we pay enough money or find the right person to be with. There are all kinds of things we look for "out there" for happiness. But we find it within. We find what within contributes to that. We discover what we can know or experience for ourselves that we can contribute.

That contribution is to cultivate wholesome states of being and wholesome activities. Live ethically. Do the things which are wholesome, that feel good for our heart. Not things which are stressful, or dutiful—things we "should" do to be the "right" kind of person—but to start learning to touch into it. To discover the natural goodness, the natural wholesomeness that we are capable of, and how it can well up from within if we are relaxed enough, settled enough, and connected to ourselves enough. Part of what we contribute to our own happiness is a practice of mindfulness, a practice of being present and aware. From that, we can recognize what is wholesome, recognize healthy states and activities, and then call on them.

The third Truth of Happiness is that once we recognize these wholesome states of being—and mindfulness itself, done well, done calmly, not contentiously, equanimously, is considered to be extremely wholesome—we maintain them. As we start connecting to the wholesome, as we start connecting to what feels like well-being, stay close to it.

The Buddha talked about states of well-being and states of wholesomeness as things that we should maintain. The causes of suffering are things we want to bring to an end; the conditions that bring about well-being, we want to maintain. We want to stay close to them.

I have been in many situations where I felt pretty happy, and then I had a to-do list. I threw myself into the to-do list, and I got grumpy. I got irritated. I got frustrated—unnecessarily so. I gave up on my well-being; I ignored it in favor of the things to do. Other times, I felt connected, I maintained my sense of calm, my sense of ease, my sense of joy and happiness, and I also had a to-do list. I did it out of that well-being, with that well-being. Usually, what happens then is I do it a little bit slower. Usually, I do it with more delight and joy. Usually, I make fewer mistakes. Usually, there is less repetition. It gets done well the first time. So while it is slow—sometimes slow is what gets things done the fastest.

This idea of maintaining is a message that many Buddhists don't seem to get because there is so much emphasis on letting go, not holding on to anything, and just showing up for the next moment. There is no sense of "let's maintain something."

In the example of petting the cat: you have to maintain the petting for the cat to keep purring. You get instant feedback if you stop. There has to be a maintaining of something. So it is with our heart: the way we nourish, nurture, pet, and care for it. It needs maintenance. It needs attention. It needs care.

This doesn't have to be selfish. It doesn't have to be at the expense of others. It doesn't have to be done with attachment or clinging. Maintaining is not the same thing as attachment. I maintain my car—usually I go get the oil changed—but I have no attachment to doing or not doing it; it is just a matter-of-fact thing to do. We maintain our heart. We maintain the wholesomeness that is here.

So we contribute to our happiness. The word "contribute" is a choice word because it does not mean we cause it. To have to be the cause of our suffering and focus on causing it to happen just messes it up. What we do is almost like saying, "Let me be happy." It is the heart willing—a kind of openness, allowing, and trusting. Who knows what the heart wants to reveal or show at any given time? There might be unresolved anger or grief that needs to come out that doesn't look like conventional happiness. However, there can be a way in which it feels good, feels healthy to let it be there. It feels like there is a healthy awareness, a capacity to be present. "This is good, and this is true. This is really connecting to a true process, a true depth of what is really concerning me, and it is good to be here with it."

So then we maintain the goodness or the healthiness of how we relate to our anger, how we relate to our grief. We aren't looking for a kind of cheerful happiness. We are looking for a way of being that feels solid, that feels right given the circumstance. That is contributing the conditions out of which well-being and joy can arise.

The Buddha used the language of birth to describe joy appearing for us: a joy is born. It is not something we cause. Sometimes we have to spend time letting something gestate, letting something mature and sprout. For joy to arise, we have to contribute the care, like a gardener would care for a garden.

So the third Noble Truth of Happiness is: maintain the well-being. Maintain a satisfying form of awareness, of mindfulness. Maintain care and friendliness. Maintain joy. Maintain delight. Stay close to it. Stay in touch. Don't get too far away from it by getting distracted, busy, and overwhelmed by the to-do list or whatever is going on. You can do that, but to allow this garden to grow, to allow the happiness, clarity, and freedom to grow, the right conditions have to be there. It is not just wishful thinking. It is not just touching in a few times a day to some kind of calm state. For the garden to really grow, it needs to have sunlight on it all day long. So, maintain these good things and maintain them through the day.

It is said to be difficult to do, but satisfying to do. It becomes second nature, like riding a bike. After a while, it becomes second nature that we can live closely in touch with our inner well-being, our inner wholesomeness. It is possible.

So this is a third truth of happiness. Today, as you go through your day, find a way to remind yourself again. Yesterday I suggested tying a string around your finger. Maybe today do something a little bit more, something that reminds you even more strongly perhaps. Or you can put a timer on your phone to go off every ten minutes. Use some kind of reminder to check in and see if you can tap into what feels wholesome within.

If you don't feel anything wholesome within, that is a time to find out how to be aware in a wholesome way. How to be aware in a way that feels good, feels satisfying, feels calm, feels spacious, feels supportive. This is invaluable. At the minimum, no matter how difficult things get: fifty percent attention on how we are aware. So that how we are aware can be nourishing for us, beneficial, and create the conditions for other wholesomeness to come out, to be born.

The fact that it is fifty percent attention on yourself and how you are aware—embodied awareness, being connected here—does not mean you have to have less awareness for other people or for the activities you do. It actually can give more, because our capacity to be aware can grow. To have this fifty-fifty awareness—of here, with how you are aware, how you are; and fifty percent with what you are doing, the people you are with—creates the conditions where the sum total of your awareness maybe triples. So you clearly have more awareness for what you are doing than you had before, but you do it while being able to stay closely in touch with what is happening here.

So you can know yourself better, but maybe also you can stay in touch to maintain what is good. Maintain the wholesome. Maintain it through the day.

I wish you well with that. I hope you take this on and see what you learn in the process. Thank you.