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Guided Meditation: Clarity; Dharmette: Buddha's Mind (3 of 5) Knower of the World - Kim Allen

The following talk was given by Kim Allen at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 09, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Clarity

This week we are touching into various wholesome qualities during the meditations, just as a way of flavoring the sit and allowing these things to register in our system. Then we go on and do our usual meditation, but maybe noticing the way evoking that quality has some effect on the way it goes. At least that's the hope as we explore this week. Today's quality that we'll be evoking is clarity.

So with that, let's settle in for sitting, finding a comfortable and upright—or at least straight—posture. It's okay if you're sitting or lying down; you could also try standing or walking softly back and forth. Those are all fine postures for meditation. Just allow the attention to come inward, closing the eyes, and finding some sense of centeredness in the body and in the mind.

I find it helpful to bring attention briefly to the contact points where I'm sitting: my seat against the cushion (you may be on something else), and my legs or feet against the floor. Usually, there are at least three contact points, and that's a very stable setting—the tripod of stability wherever you're sitting or lying. Feel that groundedness or support, and allow yourself to be supported.

As we have this connection to the body through feeling resting points, perhaps also bring in a sense of bodily presence. Your body is in a particular place. You're sitting here in this room, or maybe you're outside, but you're in this particular spot. You're surrounded by some space; perhaps you're in a room or some location. It's fine to sense that as the specific conditions of today. You're here, feeling that presence.

Then in the mind, bring to the fore—as they say in the suttas¹—the quality of mindfulness. This isn't meant to be anything big that you have to generate effort for. It's as simple as this: if I tell you to direct your attention to your right hand, see how easy it is for it to go there. So evoke mindfulness. Know that you're here. It is very simple and very light. Then allow that quality to remain in your awareness for a bit. This is what it's like to have mindfulness at this moment.

Mindfulness is not just one thing; it's not always the same. So a further question is: how is your mindfulness right now? Sometimes mindfulness feels precise. Sometimes it feels large and spacious. Sometimes it feels soft and warm. It can have a different character at different times. How is it for you right now?

Now, further refining our sense, we can notice specifically the quality of clarity that naturally accompanies mindfulness. If we become mindful after some period of not being so mindful, it can feel like we're looking outside through an open window pane compared to having a window there. It's like the window is opened and we see directly through the window space. Awareness will have that extra vibrancy or sharpness to it when mindfulness is present, compared to just ordinary consciousness and attention. See if you can notice that extra clarity that comes when we know that we know—when we have this additional quality of mindfulness compared to just going through the day. We are paying attention to something because we're awake and conscious, but mindfulness is a little different, isn't it?

That isn't meant to tie us up in anything complex; it was just a pointing. Now, turning to the breath or the body, sensing your normal meditation object and allowing yourself to rest in the flow of the breath or sensations. Have the sense that you know that you're meditating.

From time to time, register the clarity of the mind at a given moment. Just allow yourself to appreciate that direct knowing of things, as if we were seeing them with no medium—not even glass—between us and them. And continue on like this.

Sensing into the quality of clarity that is possible in the mind. Maybe the act of checking helps bring up a bit more of it. Appreciate this potential of the mind to just have a clear recognition in the moment.

It might be that experience feels unclear when you check, and we might immediately assume that the mind was dull. That may be the case; that certainly happens during meditation. But there's another possibility: sometimes we have a clear knowing in the mind of an object that is somewhat vague. Do you know how to distinguish those in your practice?

A mirror can be clear and direct, or it can have fog on it if it's in the bathroom and you've had a shower. That foggy mirror does not reflect an object very well; it looks blurry. That's what we think. But it's actually perfectly reflecting the multitude of water droplets that are stuck on it. That's what they look like. So it's worth checking if we have a dull mind or if we can have a clear knowing of a vague object, because that does happen in sitting. That can be something interesting to check out around this quality of clarity.

You're invited to let it register and appreciate that our mind can have this quality of clarity, even if it's just from time to time. The special, heightened noticing that the human mind is capable of is a true gift—something that can be directed in ways that are so beneficial, far beyond what we can know. So rest in this quality of clarity, of clear seeing, that we already have and can continue to develop.

As we will soon be going forward from the time of meditation, we can consider that this quality of clarity brings multiple benefits into our daily life and also to others. One of the biggest is that it's a protection. By having a clear sense of what's happening and how we're entering into situations, we're much less likely to say something or do something mindless that we regret later. There's not 100% protection from that in our mind, but this clarity really helps. I'm sure some of you have already seen that.

So we can have confidence in bringing up mindfulness, this clear seeing. We will remember to be kind and to stay in line with our values, for example. That protects others, also, from any slips we might be making. A little more proactively, clarity can bring us understandings that are so useful. We could suddenly realize, "Oh, I hadn't noticed that this person is nervous." This person talking to me—I had thought they were just being kind of irritating, but now I can see through that to the fact that they're actually really scared in this moment. That can change how we interact with them, in a way we might not have allowed ourselves to see if we hadn't been willing to bring in that extra clarity.

So there's a way in which we're protected, and also a way in which we can proactively notice things and then act from that new knowledge. It's a refinement; we may not have seen everything yet, but if we're willing to keep seeing with clarity, more and more will be revealed. Have confidence in this mindfulness that we're cultivating as we go forward, wishing that all beings can benefit in some way from our ongoing awareness and clarity of mind. May all beings be happy and peaceful, and may they come to see more and more in their lives. And may we in some way help that through our practice.

Dharmette: Buddha's Mind (3 of 5) Knower of the World

We'll continue this week with our exploration of the attributes or epithets of the Buddha. I've decided to be more precise and say that there are ten of them, to imprint that into your memory. There are ten Buddha-guṇas²—only nine technically in the formal recollection that's done (not to leave you hanging). The extra one is Tathāgata³, which I'm sure many of you have heard as a name for the Buddha. It's actually traditionally the first one, and then there are these other nine. For some reason, the Tathāgata is not included in the recollection; maybe we'll touch on it on Friday. But don't worry about it; if you contemplate nine or ten qualities, it's equally good.

So, the ten Buddha-guṇas. Today we'll talk about just one of them: the fifth. We've already done the first four, and the fifth quality of the Buddha's awakened mind is said to be Loka-vidū⁴. Loka is the world and vidū has to do with seeing, so it's usually translated as "Knower of the World" or we could even say "Knower of the Worlds." The word is not plural, but there are a lot of different worlds that the Buddha has clear knowledge and clear seeing of.

This quality—remember I said at the beginning—the order of these traits or epithets is not arbitrary. They do have a sequence. We've talked about how the Buddha's mind is completely wholesome, free of greed, hatred, and delusion, and that he's able to manifest that understanding through clarity and accomplishment in knowledge and conduct. He manifests that in his way of being. The result of that is that he is always happy—he's never separated from the peace and happiness (though "happiness" is almost too light of a word) of Nibbāna⁵. Nonetheless, nothing can shake his mind. Things happen, and he's able to just flow with those, be with them in a wholesome way. All the craziness of the world that the Buddha emerged back into after his awakening couldn't throw his mind off. That was Sugato⁶, the happiness of the Buddha.

What emerges from that is that he can see very clearly. His mind is not thrown off by things, it's not colored by carrying a lot of fixed views, and it's not reactive about what's going on. Whenever he turns his mind toward what he's seeing, he can know clearly what that's about. This is a beautiful quality. His own pure mind, excellent conduct, and inner peace allow him to look with clear eyes at the world. And he decided to do that; he decided to really understand what's going on here.

We can consider this for ourselves, too. Many of us have some interest in understanding the mind, the body, how psychology works, and how relationships work. What's going on in this world that we got born into somehow? By understanding this list, we can understand that it's a good idea to practice and find some measure of happiness, good conduct, and inner peace in ourselves in order to really know what's going on in the world—not to trust our assumptions based on a reactive mind. Similarly, if we have some idea that we want to help the world, we might want to do some practice first and really get ourselves grounded so that we can see clearly and know how to help. This quality is where the Buddha looks out and "gets it," so that he knows what to do.

So what are the "worlds" that the Buddha could see and know? In the broadest sense, what he looked at was natural laws in nature. He saw that the universe is not random in how it is unfolding. There's a wonderful idea from Western philosophy of cosmos and chaos. Cosmos⁷ is the idea that the universe has organizing principles behind it; there is a wholeness going on here. If we're not clear, then we see chaos, but behind it is a cosmos—a sense of unity or wholeness. The Buddha could see that. He could know the Dhamma⁸. The word "Dhamma," in its biggest sense, is the lawfulness of what's going on. Most comprehensively, his teaching of that lawfulness was the Law of Dependent Arising⁹—understanding the causes and conditions that bring about basically everything. Sometimes they're going in a wholesome direction and we're building a path; sometimes the causes and conditions are creating saṃsāra¹⁰, the wandering on of more and more suffering because we're not seeing clearly.

For us, we get little glimpses of how conditions come together and we suddenly have insights into how things work. But imagine a mind that could comprehend all of that. To be clear, the Buddha wasn't omniscient; he didn't see all of that all the time. He still had a human mind, but anytime he directed his mind toward understanding a certain aspect of life, he could. I think it's important to say that he's not considered omniscient in the early teachings. There's a sutta that says whether or not there is an arising of Tathāgatas, there is this "regularity of the Dhamma." The lawfulness of the universe is independent of whether or not there's a Buddha to know it. That's a pretty profound statement. There is a lawfulness here, and luckily for us, there are people who arise from time to time who are able to see it. That's the case for a Buddha.

I find this tremendously comforting and supportive—to know that in the background. The degree to which I can just barely glimpse pieces of it in my practice I find very nourishing; it is a form of refuge for me. I hope maybe you can touch into that also. It's an idea evoked from this Loka-vidū, Knower of the World.

Another thing to say about this knowing: the Buddha didn't only know physical laws. In our Western understanding, there's a sense of going to physics or biology—the physical world, the law of gravity, electromagnetism, and the laws of chemistry flowing in our bodies. Those are all true; they're even named in the commentaries as things the Buddha knows. But in addition, the Buddha knew how the mind works. That's really the key for understanding suffering. I started out my own training in physics due to a love of nature, and at some point, I realized that as beautiful and inspiring as it was, it didn't address my deepest questions about dukkha¹¹. That was something I had to articulate later, and then I could expand into deeper understandings.

We have also understandings of the psychological world, how the mind functions—the mental world. And maybe most importantly, the Buddha understands how karma functions—how intentional actions done by beings who can form intentions unfold into greater suffering or a path toward peace. This is the understanding, again, of the lawfulness of the Dhamma.

In the suttas, the "world" (Loka) is defined as the six sense spheres¹² and their objects. It says the eye and forms, the ear and sounds, the nose and scents, the tongue and tastes, the body and tangible things, and the mind and mental objects. That is the world. That is it for us; that's what we can experience. To understand how all of that works, how it's interrelated, how the mind arises together with an object—all of this is the realm of what the Buddha could understand. You can imagine that you would need to know all of that in order to not have any suffering in mind. None of that was outside of what he could know, and therefore he couldn't be fooled by any of it.

Then we can say more specifically: what the Buddha knew is how suffering works. That was what he taught. Maybe he knew the whole six sense spheres, but what he taught was "this handful of leaves¹³." Here's how this leads to your entanglement, and here's how it cannot. This is where it starts getting practical—how we can apply this particular quality of the Buddha.

One thing that we do in our minds, you may have noticed, is create worlds. We create views of things. We create our understanding of, "Oh, this is what's going on," or "This is how I am," or "This is how the world is or should be." And then we act from that view, from that picture or orientation. One very important thing to start understanding in practice is how those views come together. They're not actually absolute truths, and they're not random. They're created out of conditions—partial understandings that we have. Conditions of the moment, physical and mental feelings, are very important in forming our views.

We can observe this in meditation. We can sit and watch the mind. Let's say we're being mindful; the flow of experience, sensations in the body and mind are arising, and we're noticing them. I have seen at times the mind start to move toward having a thought or having a view. For example, a pain arises in my back and the thought comes, "Oh, maybe that's because of all that hiking I did yesterday." I can feel my mind starting to form a picture like, "Oh, maybe the amount of hiking I did should be set in my mind as the limit. I shouldn't hike more than that many miles because otherwise my back is going to hurt." We're suddenly creating an understanding, a "world," out of what? A pain, a feeling. Just one sensation in the back starts forming this worldview. We can see it like a little bubble coming into creation. Usually, what we do is we say, "Great, I'm going into that," and we jump in. We become the person in that world—the person who's going to decide I can't hike more than X miles because my back's going to hurt. We become that, and it feels comfortable; we get to be that person.

But what if we hadn't gone into that bubble? We just saw it as, "Oh, there's a thought arising, tempting to go in and do that, but I'm not going to do that. I'll wait for the next moment to arise. Stay with mindfulness. Stay with the present moment." The "Knower of the Worlds" is someone who knows when a world is coming into being and decides, "No thank you, I'm not going to jump into that world." I'm just going to see it as one more formation and let that bubble go on.

In daily life, we can observe the same thing. It's not as clear as it is during the flow of meditation where we have a lot of mindfulness, but we can also observe that we're living in certain stories. We can sometimes observe other people's views. A friend comes and talks to us about a problem, and we can see very clearly, "Oh, it's all because they believe such and such." If they didn't believe that, they wouldn't be making this into something they're so anxious about. Then there's a question about how we say that or don't, depending on our relationship, and we may not be right in our perception.

Nonetheless, I want to suggest that this idea of observing the views—the worlds that we create with our stories—is one very important way to avoid falling into suffering and avoid the enactment of so many of the "selves" that we think ourselves to be. This is really worth seeing.

I'll just give one more little example. I once went to both a Western doctor and an acupuncturist for the same physical issue. It was a totally different "world" in each case, right? The tests they do, the questions they ask, the views they bring in to decide how you might be helped—it was like two different worlds. They almost didn't overlap. It was great—I actually benefited from both of them—but I could see so clearly that each person I spoke with was acting within a realm of understanding that was limiting and describing what they would see and where they would put their attention. It's so interesting to see that in others; it's much harder to see it in ourselves, but it's operating in the same way.

This seeing of the worlds is so important for understanding our suffering. And bringing it back to the Buddha, it's also a big part of the Buddha's ability to teach and guide people out of their suffering. This is a transitional quality. Loka-vidū is a transition from qualities of the Buddha's own awakened mind that he experienced internally to seeing the worlds and how they work, and then there's a way in which he can act from that to help the rest of us. That's what we'll talk about tomorrow. Thank you all.