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Guided Med: Know Breath & Impermanence to Cultivate Confidence; Dharmette: Trust 3/5: Practice & Ethical Conduct Build Confidence - Nikki Mirghafori

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

Guided Med: Know Breath & Impermanence to Cultivate Confidence

Hello friends, hello and welcome to the 7 a.m. sit and talk. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in the world. Lovely to be with you today.

We're going to continue our theme of exploring trust, confidence, Saddhā.¹ Let's begin by sitting together.

Let us arrive. Let us land right here, right now, in our bodies, in this moment in time. Letting go of whatever has arisen before this moment and connecting with the sensations of the body connected to the Earth, rooted to the Earth, present, alive for this limited, precious moment of being alive.

Knowing this body from the inside. It's only I can do. Only I can know this body intimately from the inside; nobody else can. Getting to know, sense, feel the sensations of touch, contact with the earth, and the sensations of the breath, intimately. Letting go of thoughts and memories. We can pick them up later, but right now, connecting with the breath.

Calming, soothing. We know connecting with the breath can be calming and soothing. We know this. Why do we forsake the breath for others, for thoughts and distractions and worries? In this moment, no need. Dear heart, no need. Dear mind, don't forsake yourself.

Relaxing and being connected, fully mindful of the in-breath and out-breath to calm the mind, bring clarity of knowing, clarity of vision. One breath at a time.

Softening, relaxing the body, the heart, connecting with the breath. Knowing the in-breath, out-breath. Calming, soothing. The more we know the breath, the more we stay with the breath—Anāpānasati,² mindfulness of the breath—the more settled our mind becomes, our heart becomes. The more clarity we have to see what is happening in our heart-space, mind-space. We know this. The more we see it in action, it brings more confidence, trust in ourselves, in the practice. So simple. Knowing the breath, calming the mind, settling the heart. Relax and receive the breath, every single breath, in and out.

Knowing the breath, knowing the in-breath, the out-breath, intimately. Only I can do this in this body. And knowing the breath, receiving the breath, mindfulness of the breath calms the mind, brings clarity, clarity of vision to see what's happening, what's arising, what's passing. We'll stay with the breath to calm and settle the mind a little while longer.

As we rest with the breath—calming, soothing, bringing more clarity to the mind and heart, stability—the breath in the body is the ground. We can also open up to noticing arising and passing away, impermanence. The breath comes and goes. Thoughts come and go, maybe in terms of images they come, or maybe they come with words. They come and they go. Perhaps emotions come and go, states of mind, sounds, sensations. Staying with the breath, but being attuned also to noticing coming and going. When impermanence reveals itself. But the primary object is the breath.

If opening to seeing impermanence becomes too wide, too much, just stay with the breath. Having dropped this reflection, impermanence will reveal itself. But don't look for it. Just simply staying with the in-breath and the out-breath, being known from within, intimately.

And as we bring this meditation to a close, notice if there is just a tiny bit more calm and clarity in your mind, your heart, your body. More settledness or spaciousness. It might show up in different ways, but notice it. It's important to notice the shifts through our practice. It helps us build trust and confidence in the practice, in ourselves.

Also, notice that you might have had many thoughts—we all do—that came and went. Impermanent. Where are they now? During this practice, they came and went. Impermanent. They didn't stick, they didn't stay. They're frozen in the past. Reflecting on that also increases trust, confidence in the teachings of the Buddha. Things come and go. They're impermanent.

Appreciating yourself for having showed up, for having practiced. Trust in yourself for showing up without attachment to outcome. Our practice unfolds on its own. We just show up. We do our part for ourselves, for each other, for the world.

May all beings everywhere be the beneficiary of my practice, of my goodwill, of my intention to be a kinder, wiser, less reactive human being. May all beings be well. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free, including myself.

Thanks, everyone. Thanks for your practice.

Dharmette: Trust 3/5: Practice & Ethical Conduct Build Confidence

Greetings, everyone. So today is day three of our exploration of this topic, Saddhā. The word Saddhā in Pali, translated as trust or confidence.

A quick recap of the past couple days: we explored how trust, confidence in the practice, in the path, is necessary for beginning the practice, for starting it, and also for continuing, for not stopping. Then yesterday, we explored how trust in the Triple Jewel³—which is the classical language: the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—is important for this path. And I unpacked that. Very briefly: trust in the Buddha can show up as, "Oh, somebody woke up, somebody did practice and really developed these beautiful qualities, a human being just like me, so can I." Trust in the teachings, that there are recipes, there are ways to do this. And trust in the Sangha, in the community, support of the community. We're not doing this alone, and many, many people have done this, and I can too. And I brought in a musical simile: learning to play a musical instrument, such as the cello, and the trust that we need to see that others have done this, and that there are music books and music classes and music scales and practicing available, and all that.

Today, I'd like to turn to exploring what gives rise to, how we can grow in confidence, how we can cultivate Saddhā. The three main points that I want to make today are growing Saddhā, growing our confidence, cultivating our confidence through practice, through meditation practice; through Sīla,⁴ ethical conduct; and through reflective practice with support from the Sangha. So these are the three points I want to touch into today, and also connect them with the themes that I brought into the meditation today.

So how can we grow and cultivate our trust, our confidence? The first one is really our meditation, our practice itself. Our formal practice, and I'll say informal practice is very important as well. For example, the practice of stealth Metta, when we're walking around having a kind heart and beaming Metta to others. Those informal practices in between times, when we're washing the dishes, sensing our bodies, those are important as well. But for a moment, I'm going to concentrate on formal practice, and I'll come to informal practice.

With formal practice of meditation, when we sit and practice, notice... for example, today I invited you to connect with the breath, simple Anāpānasati, and I left a lot of silent space for you to explore so that the mind would settle, the heart would settle. When we practice Anāpānasati, as an example of many, many practices in this vast Dharma offering, it is a go-to for many of us. It's a primary practice that the Buddha taught. Mindfulness of the breath, knowing the in-breath and out-breath in the body. Knowing the breath calms and settles the mind. It does. When we really do it, it calms and settles the mind. It brings more clarity, so that the mind, instead of being lost in thought here and there, settles, and it can see more clearly. It can see more clearly the thoughts that arise and pass. The mind can see the patterns, the patterns of thoughts that we have. Maybe we have a pattern of being a planner; we keep planning, planning, planning. When the mind settles with mindfulness of the breath, we can see our patterns. We can see how maybe we're still resentful, we're still reactive of something that happened days ago, or months ago, or years ago. Like, "Wow, sweetheart, you're still picking that up." We get to see it instead of being lost in it and not even noticing what's happening.

So, Anāpānasati, mindfulness of the breath, among other practices, can really help the mind settle to see the patterns of the mind. When we do a meditation practice like mindfulness of the breath and we reflect at the end, as I invited you to do, pay attention. "Oh, is my mind any calmer than it was when I began the practice?" And you realize, "Oh yeah, there are still thoughts, of course there are, but there's a little more space. I'm a little calmer." That reflection alone, that added reflection at the end, helps you see that, "Oh yeah, this practice works. I can do it. It's working." It brings confidence. It brings trust, and that trust is important to bring you back, to support you on the path. So please build trust as you practice. Do bring awareness to how the mind is getting calmer, how you're having insights.

That's in the short-term, during a half-hour or hour practice a day. But also do that in the longer time span. Maybe reflect that, "Oh, I've been practicing now for six months or a year, and I'm kinder to myself," or "I'm less reactive in this particular situation." Maybe there are situations that you still get reactive, but when this particular person says something, "Oh, I used to get really reactive, but now I don't." Okay, wow, something has shifted. Or maybe your friends and family tell you that something has shifted. So reflect on these shifts, on these changes, either short-term during your practice or long-term over days, weeks, months, years, to build and cultivate trust. Trust is so important.

It's important to reflect, so reflection can help you build trust. And of course, not just the reflection, but also the doing, the practice itself. If you don't do the practice itself, there's nothing to build trust upon, right? So you need to do the formal practice of sitting and walking meditation, reflect, and do informal practice in between times. For example, maybe you're doing stealth Metta, or if you're going for a general walk, being more mindful, being more kind. If you're driving, again, beaming loving-kindness to other stressed drivers on the road. These in-between practices that are not sitting with your eyes closed, but practice that you bring to your daily life, they also change you.

One last thing I wanted to point out from this morning, earlier in our guided meditation, I also invited you to notice arising and passing, impermanence. We can notice that simply—the breath arises, thoughts arise. I've had a hundred thoughts during this 30-minute meditation, arising and passing, coming and going. When you really see the impermanent nature of everything, it gives you trust in the teachings of the Buddha, because that opens up to many, many more insights that I won't get into. But just know that that is a primary doorway for insights and for growing in trust in the Dharma: seeing impermanence.

In the time that is left, I want to talk about the importance of ethical conduct, Sīla. The importance of ethical conduct and the five lay precepts: abstaining from killing, from stealing (taking what has not been offered), sexual misconduct, false speech, and taking intoxicants. Abstaining from these five, the ethical conduct, it helps grow trust in the practice. Let's just pause for a moment and consider. Let's take the fifth one, for example, intoxicants. If you keep drinking, for example, intoxicating the mind and making poor decisions, then your trust in yourself erodes. Even if you're meditating, you're trying to do it, but then you're getting intoxicated and kind of falling off, it just erodes your trust. It erodes your trust in yourself, it erodes the trust in the practice. It doesn't support it; it chips away at it.

Similarly, if you tell lies, unwise speech, there's research about how it becomes a slippery slope, and lying actually erodes other actions; it leads to other unethical actions. Unethical actions, if you're stealing, it erodes your confidence in yourself, it erodes your confidence in the practice.

So I want to leave you with these two reflections for today. As you're practicing, please notice these shifts. Have reflections both on how when you practice formally and informally in the short term, there is a shift, and also in the long term. Maybe reflect back to who you were before you started to practice, even if it was a week ago. Notice the shifts. That builds confidence, it builds trust, Saddhā. And number two, notice for yourself in your own life the relationship between your own ethical conduct and trust in yourself, trust in your practice, trust in your growing in your humanity.

So that's all the time we have. Thank you all for joining, for practicing, for building trust in yourself, in the teachings, and growing together, supporting one another in the community, in the Sangha. May our practice be of benefit to all beings everywhere, those we know, those we don't know, our family, our friends, ourselves. May all beings be well. May all beings be free.

Thanks, everyone. See you tomorrow.