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Guided Meditation: This is enough; Dharmette: Practice Skills (5 of 5) Practicing with Being Enough - Ying Chen, 陈颖

The following talk was given by Ying Chen, 陈颖 at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 26, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: This is enough

Okay friends, good morning, and I hope this is working for people. I was having a little issue with YouTube streaming just a moment ago, and hopefully, this is okay for everyone and you can hear me. I'm seeing some chat messages coming in. So yeah, good morning and good day. Just taking a moment to take it in as people arrive. I'm seeing various chat messages. Great, yes, we're all back. [Laughter] Wonderful to be here.

So I've been sharing little tips for practicing this week, and we'll continue today. I feel like I've said a lot, so maybe we'll just dive in. I'll go through the arriving sequence again and kind of sprinkle in the practice of pausing, incorporating a little more that I was hoping to incorporate today. So with the sound of a bell, let's begin.

As the sound of the bell fades away, pausing. Pausing to arrive. Arrive here and now. Maybe a few long deep breaths can support the arriving. Let the weight of the body settle towards the round earth. Arriving, arriving at the temple of this body, mind, and heart. Pausing so mindfulness, Sati¹, can begin to surface to the foreground. Maybe you feel some kind of a presence there. Some kind of a presence that's felt in the body, maybe felt in the heart space. Mindful and heartful.

There may be a felt sense of a slowing down or quieting down. Maybe the energetic field feels settling. Maybe a myriad of experiences without demanding, without setting an agenda. Simply steady. Steady with a felt sense. The felt sense of the posture may become more clear as we stay with the Sati. This is how it feels to be sitting in this posture, or lying down, or standing, or whatever posture you're taking right now.

The moments become available to us. Are you available to the moments? Are you available to the movements of the breath? Are you available to the fleeting thoughts? A sound is available to you. Are you available to the sound? Silence is available to you. Are you available to the silence? Gently becoming available to the lived experience, here and now.

Feeling and sensing what it feels like to be available. Maybe a certain kind of holding or tightening can release in the body. Maybe a certain tension around the head, face, and eyes can soften. And maybe the nervous systems around the limbs, the edges of the body, can ease up. Being available feels like this. It doesn't have to match with any of the words I say; trusting your own inner experience. Being available may feel tender, and at times vulnerable. And so we deliberately choose to align. Aligning with our heart's aspirations. Aligning with our deepest intentions.

Aligning is not a goal-setting; it is a here-and-now kind of a practice. There is a felt sense when we're aligning with our aspirations in a directional sense. We feel the uplift in the heart, in the body. We have a sense of rootedness in the body. There's a wholesome feeling when we're aligned. Aligning with the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha². Aligning with a kindness.

Being available and aligned, our heart knows this is a protected field from which we practice right here. Aligned and being available, our heart and mind can settle, become collected, composed, and this is enough. Sometimes the felt sense of the body emerges so naturally in this field. Feel the weight of the body settling down. There may be a firm contact of the body with the earth, floor, or whatever supports the body. If you choose, you can turn and rest your attention on the contact of the body with whatever supports you. This is a wholesome ground to rest in. This is good enough.

It's also natural for the felt sense of the movements of the body to become visible, felt. Movements of the breath, the flow, the dancing sensations, pulsation, tingling, throbbing, or just simply a sense of aliveness. Wavy emotions, another form of aliveness. Thought bubbles, yet another form of aliveness.

A poem by David Whyte³: Enough. These few words are enough. If not these words, this breath. If not this breath, this sitting here. This opening to life we have refused again and again until now. Until now.

Dharmette: Practice Skills (5 of 5) Practicing with Being Enough

So this week I felt like I've said a lot in terms of how to practice, and my invitation is for you to stay in your meditative bubble if you choose to do that, and maybe the words can flow in or flow out, whatever may feel appropriate for you. I won't ring a bell to transition, and I have only a little bit that I want to share today. It is evoked by the poem⁴ that I read towards the end of meditation, and that is: wherever you are, however you are, is enough.

And remember that we're always practicing as best as we are able. This is another phrase that I received from Phillip Moffitt⁵: "Practicing as best as we are able." Just let that phrase drop in, and feel and sense what's happening as that phrase settles in your system. Practicing as best as we are able.

When I first heard this phrase, my system kind of relaxed from the inside out. Maybe a little knot⁶ or something kind of got released. Maybe I wasn't quite conscious that I was just striving for something to happen, or I was trying to get somewhere else, and there's a kind of undercurrent that got released. There's a sense of this: whatever is here is enough, and maybe more than enough. It doesn't mean that the unpleasant went away, or the pleasant continued, or the hindrances⁷ are gone, but my relationship with what's here shifted. There is a sense of being more at ease with what is happening.

Can you feel the humility in this? Do you feel the humility in practicing as best as I'm able? We're not being pushed around by our expectations, goals, results, or desires. They're not reality, and goals and results tend to get us trapped between failures and successes. And sometimes when we try hard, we get so exhausted. When we practice as best as we are able, there is much less pressure, so much more space, so much more ease, and the heart can feel unburdened.

And as we practice in this way, as best as we are able, it doesn't mean that we're simply lazy or unengaged. But instead, the heart and mind are not in a big hurry to get somewhere else. We're more grounded in the reality of our experience. I remember one day I was sitting in a guided meditation where the teacher spent a long time simply preparing our minds before the meditation went on. At some point, it just dawned on me: wow, this teacher wasn't going to go anywhere else, and he was so sincere. There were no other states to get to, or some other territory to get to. He was just practicing wholeheartedly, sincerely, with whatever was showing up for him right there. There was no need for shortcuts or bouncing around. I was so moved by this.

Practicing as best as we are able allows us to stay honest and true to ourselves, to how we are. And we all know that the habit mind tends to want to skip over things that it doesn't want, or rush towards something that it wants to happen. But when we stay true to our experience, we're practicing according to the Dharma. That's practice in accordance with the Dharma. There is a kind of a through-line, an alignment with our heart's wish, our heart's aspiration. And it takes courage and integrity to stay true to our experience. When we are daring and have a sense of integrity to stay right here, right now, a kind of aliveness can come forth. This kind of attitude allows us to get unstuck from being entangled with our wanting mind.

Practicing as best as we are able, we may also notice from time to time there is a kind of contentment or satisfaction in our experience that is available to us, which is independent of the pleasant or unpleasant. This kind of contentment can exist whether or not you're feeling tired, or whether or not your neighbor's dog is barking non-stop, or whether you are hungry or thirsty. Whatever you're experiencing, there can be this kind of contentment that holds everything, and that's enough.

I want to end with the beginning words of the Metta Sutta⁸: "This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness, and who knows the path of peace: Let them be able and upright, straightforward and gentle in speech, humble and not conceited, contented and easily satisfied, unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways." And this is what should be done. That's all.

Closing Reflections

Take a moment to settle back into our bodies, mind, and heart. Maybe savoring the goodness of this week's practice. Do you feel a sense of contentment by simply showing up, practicing together as a Sangha? Can you feel the field that we're creating together, filled with goodness?

May the goodness that's been holding all of us together in these mornings, in these days, nourish our own body, mind, and heart. May the goodness expand in all directions. May it be a source of nourishment for all beings everywhere. May all beings be at ease, may all beings be happy, and may all beings be free.

[Applause]

Thank you, dear friends. Be well, be well. Take good care.