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Guided Meditation: Harmony and Truth; Dharmette: To Transform the World (5 of 5) With Truth and Harmony - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 01, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Harmony and Truth

So good morning. One of the important characteristics of the Buddha's social teachings is the idea of harmony. One image or metaphor for it is for people to mix like milk and water. Milk and water blends together very differently than oil and water, which separate. The Buddha talks about loving harmony, delighting in harmony, and being devoted to harmony. In the Buddhist monastic community—the only community the Buddha was actively involved in guiding—he put a lot of emphasis on the community living together in harmony and cooperating together.

For this meditation, I'd like to suggest that, in a certain kind of way, each of us is a community of people. Each of us contains a multitude of different impulses, feelings, thoughts—maybe almost like personalities depending on where we are. I was struck growing up and speaking different languages that I, and other people I knew, had somewhat different personalities depending on the language they spoke. When we learn a language and a culture, we learn more than a language; we learn a way of being, a way of relating and finding ourselves in the culture. That can vary from culture to culture.

Sometimes we are divided in ourselves. We have parts we don't like and parts we like. We have preferences about ourselves, things we want to hide, and ways that we want to present ourselves to the world. There is a multitude within us.

For this meditation, I'd like to suggest that we sit together with the idea of meditating in harmony with all that we are. All of who we are is invited to be here. The key thing about being in harmony is to tell the truth—speak the truth here and now. Mindfulness practice can be seen as honesty; it is mindfulness out loud. Mindfulness within is not just being aware of what is here and knowing it in some simple way. It is knowing it as an act of truth.

"This is what's happening. My shoulders are tense." See this is a moment of truth. "Oh, this is what's true. My belly is soft." "I'm thinking about the election." Not just knowing it in a casual way, or recognizing it in a dutiful way. There is something about the power of saying, "Oh, this is in fact what is happening. This is the truth that at this moment, at this time, this is a mind that's thinking about the election."

To be in harmony with that is to include it as part of the whole of who you are. It is not singled out as something to be obsessed about or caught in, but something to which, by telling the truth of it, we open to the wholeness of who we are. We are so much more. If we are distressed about something like the election, the whole of who we are includes a concern, a love for the harmony of all the parts of ourselves: the part of us that can tell the truth, the part of us that can want harmony, the part of us that has generosity, the part of us that has love and care and good will. Not to push anything away, but to place it in a wider context. Let it all live together here.

As we meditate, we are freeing up our breath, freeing up our body, so we can be at ease in this body, here and now, with all of who we are. Breathing quietly, breathing reassuringly. An easeful breath.

Assuming a meditation posture, and gently closing the eyes softly. Gently, in your own way—the way that is good for you, that feels right—acknowledge how you are. Let that be an act of truth-telling. Whatever way you are, the kind of truth-telling that allows us to be present without being caught. Even if we are caught in something, we say the truth would be, "Oh, this is being caught. I am caught."

In saying that honestly, then open to the harmony of all things within. You are much more than someone who is caught, much more than someone who is thinking a lot.

Acknowledging how you are, and then in the midst of how you are, take some long, slow, comfortable breaths. Breathing in and settling into the middle of yourself. Settling into being here in this body.

Letting your breathing return to normal. Finding some place where you experience the body breathing where there is the least sense of control, the least sense of being a breather. Where it is most neutral to feel the breathing. Could be the movements of the back rib cage. Maybe it's the small movements in the shoulders. Maybe it is a sense of the whole experience of breathing, the whole torso that feels it, that is bigger than any place where there is a sense of something doing the breathing.

Inviting relaxation as you exhale. Not doing the relaxation, almost like making space, making room for the places where the body will relax itself if you open. Invite.

Inviting a relaxation in the experience of breathing. Maybe by opening up to give breathing room for each inhale and exhale.

Inviting the exhale to relax. A softening, letting go. Allowing the inhale to include a softening.

As we continue, very quietly and softly as you can, tell yourself the truth of the present moment experience. Whatever is happening for you here and now, even if it is connected to other things and other times. Be truthful about how it is manifesting now, but do so in harmony with being at ease. Maybe with a sense of ease or calm in your breathing.

Calmly say the truth in a way that invites everything to join together in the simplicity of the moment. The simplicity of being alive and breathing now. A gentle truth-teller without conflict.

[Silence]

And as we approach the end of this sitting, softly, gently calm your body. A global relaxation into the body. Into whatever way that you feel more settled, calmer than you were when you started. Gently, calmly acknowledge how you are now. An acknowledgement that is a kind of truth-telling, and an invitation for whatever is happening to be part of a whole. The whole of who you are. The whole of this world. As if there is lots of room for all of who you are to be here in the calm, in the harmony.

And then imagine that you can be with others. Maybe without the need to say anything or do anything, but that your settledness, your ability to be present and truthful here and now, can also include an invitation for everyone to be as they are. To be part of the harmony of now. A harmonious presence that you contribute regardless of how others are.

And if you do speak, you speak with love. You speak with generosity. You speak with respect.

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

And may we find a way to support that by living in harmony with the truth. In harmony with caring for the welfare and benefit of everyone, no one excluded.

[Bell]

Thank you.

Dharmette: To Transform the World (5 of 5) With Truth and Harmony

So good morning, or good day. It is remarkable how I speak from the terms of where I am at, the time zone I'm in. Please forgive me; I want to be inclusive of all time zones. So hello everyone, and thank you for being here as I do the last of these talks on "To Transform the World."

I offer the talks in the context of the national and U.S. elections next week, and all the divisiveness that currently exists, and the sense of conflict—and maybe impending conflict—that might be coming. I offer it with the confidence that it is not necessary to succumb to despair, or succumb to paralyzing fear, or to hatred and ill will. I want us all to be confident that we can make a difference to make this world a better place.

We can do so in small ways. We can do it in our communities, with our friends, our neighbors. Of course, it is nice to do it more widely. There are people going out in all kinds of political parties to get out the vote, who are actively involved in political action. There are ways of lobbying governments, and all kinds of ways of changing the world. But for me, the most important is that we start with ourselves. We don't lose ourselves in the action we do.

I know that back when I was young, there were people who were very active in the anti-Vietnam War movement, with civil rights issues, and all kinds of things that were going on back then. Some of them got deeply discouraged because the organizations they were involved in, and the people they were working with, were so divisive. There was so much inner conflict, hatred, anger, and greed going on that they felt, "This can't continue this way." One of the reasons some people came to Buddhism was to find an alternative. I do hope that we find it here.

One of the alternatives is to appreciate that if we want to change the world for the better, we have to change too. We have to represent the change we want. We have to be the change that we want. If we want a peaceful world, we have to be peaceful. If we want to have a world where there is no hate, we have to stop hating.

The deep inner work in Buddhism is sometimes criticized for creating a lot of people who are maybe too passive or not involved in the civil life of our culture. But that is not true. There are a lot of people coming through IMC¹, for example, who have practiced here for many years and are transformed, who then go out and do all kinds of good in their own way—joining different organizations and doing different things. Maybe IMC isn't so actively involved because we are a relatively small organization, but the people coming through here do remarkable things in the world. Hopefully, they bring with them the transformation into goodness, the transformation into freedom, so they can act in ways where they are the agent of change by how they are, as much as by what they do.

One way of folding all this together that I've done this week—summarizing these different things—is:

• Love, so that others will love.
• Be peaceful, so others will learn to be peaceful.
• Give, so others trust generosity.
• Respect or dignify others, because offering dignity and respect is contagious.
• And then today: Speak the truth with love, peace, generosity, and respect.

So it transforms people's hearts. Don't only focus on policy and action; we really want to change hearts so the hearts understand how to live in harmony. The hearts can come from love and generosity. If we want to be the change that we want to see in the world, we have to be able to speak the truth, for sure. This is where the action is: speak truth to power. What power? The power of love. The power of peace—being peaceful, non-conflictive, non-contentious. Speak with a generous spirit, generous to the people we speak to, so they feel our generosity, care, good will, and our concern for their welfare.

Speak with respect. Speak in a way that sees the others with dignity; treat them as dignified people. Everyone. So it is not a hierarchy; it is not that some people are better than others, but a universal dignity. This is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: everyone is born equal in their dignity.

In speaking the truth, we have to speak. How do we do it in a way that people will listen? That is cooperative, that is harmonious? That people feel like we are not attacking, lecturing, but we are inviting people into cooperation, inviting people into a sense of harmony.

When the Buddha talked about speaking, the first thing he said was the importance of speaking truth. The second thing he said was the following: "Do not repeat what you have heard from others so as to divide people against each other."

Don't divide people against each other. Don't spread gossip. Don't use hearsay. Instead, reconcile those who are divided. Be a mediator. That is one of my great hopes for Buddhism—that Buddhism, in a sense, doesn't take sides, but Buddhism steps into the conflict in order to mediate, in order to reconcile, to find a way for people to work together. Rather than stepping into one side or the other, Buddhism enters into the middle—the Middle Way—to reconcile.

I've done that locally by being on Buddhist ethics committees where there was reconciliation work to be done. But the instinct of people was not to find reconciliation; the instinct was punishment, blame, and more divisiveness. How to reconcile so everyone is inspired by the reconciliation? How to find a way forward that everyone feels like they are cared for and benefited? I believe that is possible. It is not easy.

Reconcile those who are divided. Supporting unity, delighting in harmony, loving harmony, speaking words that promote harmony. If we are going to act in the world—and I hope we act in the world so we create a better world—it probably begins by how we speak. To speak harmoniously. To speak in a way that encourages others to join cooperatively. Encourages others to continue with the work of conditioning the soil.

We are all earthworms. We are all working on a deep, deep work of changing the soil in which we live, the soil of the heart. Slowly changing the world by creating rich soil for the seeds of goodness to sprout.

May we find a way to promote cooperation and harmony and truth-telling. May the power of love, of peace, of generosity, of respect and truth be something that guides us. And more than guides us, gives us tremendous confidence that these can be the foundation, the basis of how we live our life. These are what heals us from our own anxiety, fear, hatred, ill will, and the overwhelmed sense of victimhood in this world of so many challenges.

Let us become the producers, the confident manifestors of goodness. Let us trust goodness, wholesomeness, more than we trust what divides us.

So thank you very much for this. I appreciate very much this chance to be able to speak to you.

None of us know what is going to happen in the United States next week. I'm going to be teaching a retreat next week. We are very lucky to have Ines Freedman² come to teach here at 7:00 a.m. at the YouTube channel. I think it is the first time Ines has come. Ines is one of the senior teachers at IMC and one of the really strong foundations for what we do here in the Dharma and the cooperative world of IMC and IRC³. You are very lucky; I feel very fortunate that she is coming. I've been trying to get her to come for a long time. The more we can get Ines, the better.

The other thing is that we don't know what is going to happen next week. I'm on retreat, but if there feels a need for it, I'll maybe host a Zoom meeting one day in order to support anyone who wants to come through the process of whatever challenges this nation goes through next week. If the challenges are not that great, then I will see you the following week and we will continue to find our way.

Thank you.