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Guided Meditation: Protecting Mindfulness; Dharmette: Ten Protectors (9 of 10) Mindfulness. - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 12, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Protecting Mindfulness

My friends, welcome. I am happy to be here with you and to greet you with my delight that we have this time together.

There's a saying about mindfulness: mindfulness is easy, remembering to do it is difficult. The act of mindfulness in and of itself is meant to be phenomenally simple—so simple it's sometimes hard to trust it, so simple that it's maybe hard to remember to do it. A lot of the practice is remembering, and coming back, and coming back. At some point in the history of Buddhism, the word sati¹, translated as mindfulness, was understood to be remembering. It is related to the word memory or remembering. So part of it is to remember to do it. Because it's so difficult to remember—the mind wanders off, it gets caught up in thinking a lot—there's a second practice that we can do that helps to keep us in the flow of mindfulness.

It's also a way of protecting ourselves. Mindfulness is meant to be protective, so that we're protected from picking up thoughts, impulses, motivations, and attitudes which are harmful to ourselves or harmful to others. It protects others, it protects ourselves. And so, this not picking up—whatever happens, when you notice you're not being clearly mindful in the present moment, but you're kind of leaning into, or getting involved in, or picking up anything else, let go of it. Or if you see it arising, don't pick it up. Let it be.

For this meditation, certainly be mindful, but maybe the emphasis can be: don't pick it up. If you've picked it up, let it go. If you can't let it go, let it be. Stay in mindfulness to do this. Not picking up and letting go require some degree of mindfulness, of awareness of what's happening. Not picking up, letting go, let you kind of settle back. Just be aware now of the breathing, of the body. Be aware of what's happening rather than leaning into it, or being caught in it, or reacting to it. This doesn't have to be how you live your life, but it can be very effective as a relaxed approach to meditation. You stay a little bit alert, let go, don't pick up, let things be, and stay in the continuity. Let that help you remember to stay present.

Assume a meditation posture—a posture that, given the conditions of your body, mind, and life, allows you or supports you in being aware in the present moment, here and now. That can be any one of the four great postures: walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. Perhaps gently close your eyes, and with some sense of dedication and devotion, spend a few moments arriving here and now. If you have some preoccupations or something strong happening to you, kindly acknowledge it. Acknowledge, "Oh, this is what's happening." Name it. Recognize it. Maybe feel how it is to be this way now.

Then take a few long, slow, deep breaths. For now, let go of the thoughts, tensions, and concerns that you have. Let go the best you can, at least the tensions in the body related to it on the exhale. Deep inhale, and exhale. Release, relax.

Let your breathing return to normal and continue with a few rounds of breathing to relax in your body. Relax any tension in your body related to whatever you might be concerned with, whatever way you might be feeling. It's okay to be how you are, but let go. Relax.

Then relax the thinking mind, any tension and pressure that might be there. Soften in the forehead, in the skull, any place you feel tension and pressure. Activation around thinking—relax the activation.

Settle down to be with your breathing. Be in your body to be the home base, the home for your mindfulness, present moment awareness. If breathing is not the right place for you, go to your home base, your default way of staying in the present. As you do so, be alert enough to not pick up whatever arises. You don't need to be aversive to anything; just don't pick it up. Don't be involved. No need to react or judge. And then, if not picking it up is not enough, let go of it. Let go of your involvement with it, the tension connected to it. Or let it be, so it has no hold over you. You can stay in the flow of mindfulness. Protect your present moment awareness, and you'll be protected.

To help you not pick up, to help you let go, you might say gently, kindly, "No thank you," or "Not now." A gentle "No thank you," so you can not pick up, or you can let go and return to being aware. Awareness that's not compromised. Just aware. Breathing, body, feelings, thoughts, resting in awareness.

By not picking up, by letting go, something profound within is protected. If mindfulness, if awareness has us connected to a deep root of presence, of wisdom, or freedom, then not picking up keeps us close to that treasure within. We do have something within to protect, valuable to protect, that we lose all too easily.

There is a place within that's underneath the reactive mind, underneath the discursive mind, the story mind, where wisdom, patience, and kindness reside. Not picking up, letting go, and letting be can keep us close to this deep root inside. We're protecting something deep. As we come to the end of the sitting, may our capacity to be aware support us to stay close to our deep inner capacity for wisdom, for kind attention, patience, for generosity, and love. And from there, to gaze upon the world with goodwill. A goodwill that is a well-wishing, wishing everything in all directions well. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Ten Protectors (9 of 10) Mindfulness.

Welcome to this ninth talk on the ten protectors. This idea that there are practices we can do that protect us and protect others implies that there's something valuable to protect. One of the discoveries through things like meditation practice, spiritual practices of different kinds, and other ways of being in the world, is that we discover that there is a place within of well-being, a place of happiness or peace, a place of wisdom. A place where there can be a phenomenally wonderful, easeful caring for the world, even in the midst of great tragedy. We don't have to sacrifice this valuable place within. It is not sacrificed by the strong human tendencies for anger, for hostility, for hatred, for greed, for jealousy and envy, for self-righteousness. To be caught up in anxiety, to be caught up in fear, to be caught in ignorance—these are common human tendencies which tend to cover over, tend to restrict, and are obstacles for this deep place where wisdom and compassion can operate in a nourishing way, in a healthy way.

There's a story that's told by the Buddha, kind of a fable. He talks about the ancient world where there are two acrobats, the master acrobat and the apprentice. It turns out the apprentice's name, at least the literal meaning of the name as it appears to us who know a little bit of Pali², is "Frying Pan." I don't know, maybe "jumping out of the frying pan" or something, why they named them that way, but perhaps it's irrelevant to the story. The apprentice is going to climb up and do acrobatic feats, balanced on the master acrobat. A strong master acrobat is going to hold up the apprentice with one hand, who will do various acrobatic feats on this one hand of the senior acrobat.

So the senior acrobat says, "Watch over me and then we will both be safe. I'll watch over you, and that way we'll both be safe." And the apprentice said, "No, that's not how it works. I'll watch over myself, and then we'll both be safe. And you watch over yourself, and then we'll both be safe."

In telling the story, the Buddha said yes, that's the way it is. Then he goes on to do a teaching which changes it a little bit. Even though he says he prefers the instructions from the apprentice, he says yes, and the way that we protect others by first protecting ourselves is by cultivating the Four Foundations of Mindfulness³. This cultivates our capacity to be aware in an embodied way: aware of our body; to be aware of our feelings, the feeling tones that we have; to be aware of our mind states, to recognize them and know them well; and to be aware of the mental activity of the mind that either creates tension, the tension of attachment, or releases that tension, and reveals the beautiful qualities of the mind, the Seven Factors of Awakening⁴, the deep insight that leads to liberation.

Cultivating those Four Foundations of Mindfulness is the way we protect others. I suppose the way we're protecting others is that we're protecting them from ourselves. Remember the analogy of the acrobats: there are two people who are doing these amazing interrelated, interactive feats, exercises. For the people who we were in direct contact with, in the ancient world of the Buddha, that was primarily where the influence and the effect that people had on each other was—directly with each other. There was no social media in the time of the Buddha, and the communication lines were all through people's oral contact with each other. It gets more complicated in our modern world, but in the ancient world, the Buddha's reference point was how we're relating to people directly when we have contact. In that world, we protect others when we protect ourselves.

When we cultivate the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, we're not going to give in to greed, hate, and delusion. We're not going to get into the ways in which we get caught up, intense, and reactive to what's going on, and then people are protected from our reactivity.

The Buddha then continued, and this is where he makes it a little bit more inclusive. First he agrees, and explains how it's true, and then he goes on to say: we protect others by protecting ourselves by cultivating these Four Foundations of Mindfulness; and we protect ourselves by protecting others when we practice patience, loving-kindness, sympathy, and—there's one more, I forget what it is.

This idea of kindness, the idea of patience with people, the idea of having sympathy for them—if we have those attitudes towards others, that's a way of protecting ourselves. So the protection goes in both directions. There are certain things we do for ourselves that protect us from the unhealthy reactivity we might have, thereby protecting others. And there are certain things we can do for others, which have to do with healthy, supportive attitudes of goodwill towards others, that in return protect ourselves.

We don't protect ourselves when we meet people with hate. We don't protect others when we meet people with a kind of coldness and indifference, not really understanding where they are. We don't understand others if we are impatient with them or intolerant. The word khanti⁵, which is usually translated as patience, can also mean tolerant of others, a certain tolerance. Being intolerant in English is usually not a very good way of being. That is how we protect ourselves.

So now, in this ninth protection of the ten protectors, what it is is mindfulness, sati, awareness. It's significant to me that it's the ninth of these ten. Practicing harmlessness—that's the other one for protecting, anyway—learning the Dharma⁶ well, being devoted to the Dharma, loving it; all these things we've been talking about lead up to support and protect one of the greatest protections we have, which is mindfulness.

To practice mindfulness not just for the sake of mindfulness, but because hopefully, at some point as we practice, we know there's something valuable inside us. We have access to a source, to a profundity, to a place and activity of wisdom, of compassion, of love, of kindness, of generosity, of non-harming, of insight, of being really grounded in a place of non-attachment. This is worth protecting, and we protect it by being mindful. Because if we are mindful, we'll see very clearly. The greater the mindfulness, the more acutely we'll see the movements towards reactivity, the ways in which attachment operates, where we get involved, where we lean into, where we get caught up in, where we even justify reactivity. But to come back to that deeper place and to protect that—in doing that we protect others and we protect ourselves. We do that, and then we have the opportunity to offer to others the goodwill, the kindness that protects us externally from others. The opposite of these things—intolerance, impatience, harming others, ill will, being unsympathetic to the situation of others—doesn't contribute to others wanting to care for us. It contributes to the opposite.

So mindfulness is a protector. The more we practice mindfulness, the more we stay aware, the more we have the opportunity to protect something that's really precious within. From that, we begin protecting others, and have the possibility of living a life where hopefully we're all protecting each other. We all have a capacity deep inside for beautiful qualities of being, and if we want to find that in the world and spread that in the world, let us become transmitters of it. Let us be people who demonstrate that this is possible. If no one demonstrates that this is possible, then how are people going to learn it?

Thank you. We have one more protector for tomorrow, and I very much appreciate this chance to talk about these things. May you protect yourself. Today, if you can, maybe practice mindfulness through the day. Whenever you remember to be mindful, check in and reflect on how you are and what just happened for you. What's been going on the last few minutes for you? See, did you lose your mindfulness? And in losing the mindfulness, did you get involved in a reactive way? Did you get involved in something that ideally you would have been protected from, some way of being caught in a tense way? Maybe in seeing that, you'll say, "Oh yes, mindfulness is a protector, and it would have been worth being mindful so I didn't get so caught up." And if you didn't have any caught-up-ness during the day, then at the end of the day you can celebrate. Thank you.