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Guided Meditation: A Community of Practice; Dharmette: Buddha's Smile (3 of 5) Associate with the Wise - David Lorey

The following talk was given by David Lorey at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 16, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: A Community of Practice

Greetings, and good day. Good people, good friends, checking in from all over—and thus we begin the day.

Today, we return to the theme of the understandings that arise in meditation as we practice. As I've been saying, these understandings may bring a smile to our faces that echoes or reflects the Buddha's smile, as seen in much of the iconography of Buddhist practice around the world. Today, the knowledge that arises is that it's the wise, the noble, and those of good heart who engage in this practice. I want to celebrate the community of practice that supports our efforts and to which we give our support. An understanding that arises in meditation is that this community of practice is wholesome and supportive, helping us as we develop and deepen our practice.

So, let's sit together in meditation. I'll guide just a little bit this morning. As we close the eyes, bring our attention inward and downward. Connect with the breathing and with the body—perhaps with the weight or the settledness of the body. We can connect, too, with the simplicity, the slow pace, and the uncomplicated nature of the body's sensing of experience. Whatever we've been up to so far this day, let this be a way of slowing down, simplifying, and rebalancing our attention.

As we settle into our own meditative space, we can bring attention to this community of practice that meditates together these mornings. Perhaps you can feel the benefit of that support for what is otherwise an individual, private practice. Feel that the experience we meet in our practice—the challenges we face, as well as the lightness and ease that can come—is shared in this community. Both the struggle and the ease are supported by this group.

Sometimes when we meditate together in a physical space, we open our eyes after the period of meditation and look around. If we meet the gaze of others, we may exchange a smile. It's a smile of knowing that comes from the meditation experience—something deep that recognizes this companionship, this camaraderie, and this partnership on the path as something wholesome.

Sometimes we know very little about our Dharma friends—the people with whom we meditate. But what we do know—a knowledge that arises by itself from the meditation, as per this week's teachings—is the knowledge that we are facing some of the same challenges and experiencing some of the same peace. By doing this together in community, we support one another's practice.

So today, I suggest we bask in the glow of what is a shared act of generosity. We generously give our support to one another by showing up to practice together, and then we open up and receive that support from others. This is a knowing that comes up in meditation. Sometimes it is difficult to ask for help or support, but in this community, part of what we give is an openness to receiving the support of one another on the path.

See if you can feel the community today, even if it is mediated in this thoroughly modern way through devices, screens, and electrons. Feel other people sitting, other people at ease, other people struggling, other people willing to give time and attention, and other people willing to receive. See if perhaps a gentle, inward smile arises.

As we move toward the end of this sitting period, we might reflect again on the beauty of a community that gathers to practice, to support one another, and to receive the support of others. We might reflect that in this community of practice, we join the Buddha and other awakened ones in the meditation practice. It's a vast community—people who have practiced in these Buddhist traditions, seeking to see clearly and to open the heart.

It is a knowledge that arises from within the meditation that this goodness—this ease, this place for the mind to rest—is shared by others who orient themselves toward freedom. There's a knowing that arises that this meditation is practiced by people like ourselves, who have become aware of a mind or heart that wants to be free.

Our acknowledgment of this understanding strengthens our own practice and also strengthens the community. Let's end the meditation by committing ourselves to making it not an exclusive community, but one that is inclusive. We don't know where people are on the path. We know that all people, like ourselves, have their quirks, their idiosyncrasies, their warts, their shortcomings, and their rough edges. We can expand our care to meet all of them.

May all the people in the community of practice, and all the people in the larger community affected by our practice together, know some benefit from this goodness of heart and this ease in the mind. May all beings be free of suffering. May all beings be free.

Dharmette: Buddha's Smile (3 of 5) Associate with the Wise

Good morning again, friends—or good afternoon, good day, or good evening, depending on where you are and what salutation is appropriate. Welcome.

Today I'd like to continue with the third of the five knowledges¹ that this particular text tells us arise for us in our experience of meditation. All we need to do is notice that as we deepen our meditation, there arises an understanding. On Monday, we noted that the pleasure of meditation is wholesome. Yesterday, we noted that it is good now and good in the future. Today, the understanding is that we have the great fortune of practicing along with others who share a commitment to being freer and more awake in the world. The smile that arises—the Buddha's smile—is a recognition of the shared experience of meditation and the act of generosity that brings us together.

I'll share a few comments on this. I'm going to reread the text, focusing on today's understanding, but I think it's useful to hear the opening encouragement. The encouragement is to develop a meditation that is described as "limitless"—to deepen the practice, to cultivate great collectedness, great stillness, and great ease in the mind. The text goes on to say that when we do this, as we are alert and mindful—paying attention to what's coming up in the meditation—five knowledges arise for us personally.

The third of these is that this meditation is practiced by well-meaning, good-hearted people, and that it includes the fully awake and the Buddha. When we immerse ourselves in this community of practice, one of the understandings that arises is that we are in good company—with one another and also with others who have practiced before us, including the Buddha. As the phrase goes—and as I titled this talk—when we "associate with the wise,"² we come together with other practitioners and are also in the company of the Buddha and others who have become fully awake. We enter what is referred to in the texts as the "Buddha's dwelling."³

Sometimes practitioners ask, "Why did the Buddha continue meditating after awakening?" It's an interesting question with many ways to answer it. In a sense, once awake, the Buddha's mind is always in this deep meditative state that sees clearly. It's a place where the means and the ends are the same. Settling into this "pleasant abiding" of meditation, as we've said over the last couple of days, produces good outcomes and helps us in our actions and interactions. It also keeps us in touch with what it's like to be more awake. It's a way of practicing awakening—practicing being present for our experience in a non-judgmental way, not filled with projections and attachments, in which the heart little by little becomes fully open.

It's also said that the Buddha continued to meditate after awakening out of compassion for all beings, as a way to support others on the path. This is something we keep alive when we practice together: this commitment to helping one another in our practices and, by extension, helping all beings. It is a lovely community that we practice in—a community of people who share a dedication to being more awake in the world and meeting experience with a heart that's always opening more. What could be sweeter?

Just as people ask why the Buddha kept meditating after awakening, they sometimes ask why meditators meditate together. It's a practice we often do alone; when we close our eyes and enter the meditative experience, we are very much in the "inner life," as Gil⁴ sometimes calls it, attending to the arena of the inner life. Why do this together? Why do it in this fashion, mediated over great distances by devices, screens, and electrons?

Today I'm suggesting that we do it as an act of generosity. We can receive—which is hard to do sometimes—the generous impulse from others who practice together with us. There's a story that some of you are surely familiar with that helps us understand what happens when we practice in community, benefiting from the companionship and camaraderie on the path.

One day, the Buddha and his longtime attendant, Ananda⁵, were sitting together on a hill overlooking the plains of the Ganges. On these occasions, Ananda would sometimes share his reflections or insights with the Buddha. On this particular occasion, Ananda said, "Venerable one, it seems to me upon consideration that half of the spiritual life is good friendship, good companionship, and good camaraderie."

Ananda was likely taken aback when the Buddha replied, "Not so, Ananda! Don't say that." The Buddha said that far from being half of the spiritual life, spiritual friendship⁶ is the whole of the spiritual life.

The Buddha meant several things by this. From what we understand of the historical Buddha, one of the idiosyncrasies we pick up is his penchant for wordplay. The Buddha was saying that practice in community is an extraordinarily important part of the practice. He was also saying that he is that spiritual friend with whom we all practice—Ananda then, and ourselves millennia later.

When we engage in this community of practice, part of the inward smile that arises is the understanding that when we practice with others dedicated to awakening and opening the heart, we are in the presence of the Buddha. This meditative experience we settle into—along with its pleasure and its onward-leading⁷ nature—brings us into a community of many practitioners over millennia who shared this commitment to the open heart and the free mind.

By extension, the Buddha, the Dhamma⁸ (the teachings), and the Sangha⁹ (the community) all provide spiritual friendship to us. The meditation, when entered this way, allows this third understanding to arise naturally: that we are in touch with awakening. If we pay attention, we find ourselves in the "Buddha's dwelling." We find ourselves deep in the Dhamma, where instead of meditation being a means to an end, it is the end we seek. There is ease, stillness, and an open heart to be cultivated.

We find ourselves in the company of other good-hearted people, like those here today greeting one another from around the world or those quietly enjoying the company without engaging in the chat. I'll close with a memory from this past weekend. I took a drive with my adult daughter into the Mother Lode country¹⁰ of California. About 20 minutes into the drive, winding up the hills shoulder-to-shoulder, I realized we were sitting together in "companionate quiet."

This is how I would characterize what our meditation can be like in community: that sense of complete familiarity based on trust and confidence in one another's company, where even without words or conversation, we are simply together.

I want to thank all of you for being here—those who participate in the chat and those who sit quietly enjoying the company. May you notice the goodness and blessing of this community in your meditation and feel that inner smile develop.

Thank you. Until tomorrow, I look forward to it. Bye-bye.