This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Collectedness; Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (9) Faculty of Samadhi. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Collectedness; Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (9) Faculty of Samadhi - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 07, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Collectedness

Hello and welcome to our meditation session. One of the descriptions of meditation practice is to be undistracted and collected. One of the purposes of avoiding distractions is so that our mind, our awareness, our very sense of being alive can begin to collect itself here in a composed, unified way.

Often, the mind, when it's distracted, is scattered; it's concerned with other times and other places. Our emotions can be scattering, distracting, fragmenting, or agitating. The sensations of our body can be something we're reacting to, wanting, or avoiding. So, not everything is collected together. This unification, this collectedness that happens in meditation, changes the orientation of the mind. It changes how we see ourselves. Rather than seeing a particular thing and then defining ourselves by it, judging ourselves by it, pushing against it, pulling away from it, or grabbing it, there is a sense of some larger whole, a larger immersion into the totality of our experience. While we might be very clearly mindful of the details, it's clear the details are being seen in a much wider, broader perspective. We're not fixating on anything; everything works together as a whole.

This is a collectedness of mind and body. To assume a meditation posture is the beginning of collecting ourselves. We collect all the varied ways in which we're scattered and preoccupied, where our energies and thoughts are elsewhere, and we begin to bring it here. Invite all of who you are to come together in this spot, this place of sitting. We assume the posture as a physical beginning of doing this.

You no longer have to focus on looking at anything; the eyes don't have to be focused on something. Either lower the gaze in an unfocused gazing on the floor, or gently close the eyes. The closing of the eyes can feel like another explicit step towards arriving here, collecting ourselves into this experience, so the eyes are not outwardly focused away from ourselves.

Take a few long, slow, deep breaths as a way of saying hello to this body, this being that you are. Make clear contact with the body here with a deep in-breath, and experience a deep relaxation as you exhale. Tension is fragmenting; it pulls together certain muscles so they stand away or contract into themselves. Relaxing our muscles, softening them, allows them to work in harmony with the rest of the body, not frozen or locked away. Relaxing is part of the process of collecting, of settling in here.

Let the breathing return to normal and continue this process of relaxing. Every part of the body that relaxes is invited into the whole, collecting together, joining the sense of the whole body here in a unified field.

Relax the muscles of the face. Tension in the face is often a place that represents how we fixate or get caught up in social dynamics, concerns, and fears. Let the muscles of the face fall away from the skull so they can be at ease. Soften the jaw.

Relax the shoulders. If they don't relax easily, you might try a subtle adjustment of how the hands and arms are placed to give the shoulders more room to relax. Or, if there's no relaxation in the shoulders, allow a softening around the shoulders—a softening that's okay with how things are.

Soften the belly. Feel the weight of the belly and let it relax downward into the pelvic bowl.

Then, take a few moments to feel your body as globally as is easy for you, with as wide a sense of being embodied as you can. With the inhale, breathe into that global body. On the exhale, relax the whole body. Composing yourself here means nothing is left out. Is there anything that's happening for you right now that you're overlooking, denying, or trying to get away from? Can you recognize it gently, softly, and let it know: you too have a place in the larger whole?

Let the global body make space for everything, where breathing in is an acknowledgment of all that is here, and breathing out is a relaxing, an opening.

The waves on top of the ocean, the swells that move through, are just the surface of a vast, collected ocean that's whole and works together. So too are the waves of breathing in and out, and the wisps and currents of thoughts and feelings. Stay present here with your breathing, but open to all things within the ocean of your experience. Stay present and open so all things can gather here and have a place in the unified, composed feeling of being alive, here and now.

And then, as we come to the end of this sitting, feel to whatever degree you're more settled or calmer. Feel any degree to which, now that I'm speaking, you can be more aware of yourself and how you are, or any ways in which you feel more collected, whole, or content just sitting here with your own lived experience of now.

If it's possible, make room for all of who you are. This could be an act of imagination, as if your very being is a vast space that holds all of who you are, or like gathering together all the pieces of a puzzle here. Breathing together, being together, feeling, sensing, and knowing all that is here. Not by thinking about it, but more like feeling, sensing, and being open, with no part left out.

To whatever degree this works for you, stay there. Stay quiet enough as you are as you now turn your attention out into the world around you—this world that's full of suffering and joys, conflict and friendships, warmakers and peacemakers, lovers and haters. For a minute or so, hold it all as one large whole. For this minute or so, it is whole within your awareness, within the scope of your knowing and your imagination. All things are collected together in a way that all things are safe with you right now.

Considering whatever benefits this meditation has brought you, or any way of being that it reminds you of, hold the wish that you can bring a sense of safety to all the people you meet. May they feel safe, at least from you; you don't assert yourself, and you don't run away. The gift of safety.

May it be on this day that I walk in the world as a safe person for all that I meet. May it be that from that field of safety from me spreads out a wish, a sincere desire to see the welfare and happiness of all beings. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. Thank you.

Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (9) Faculty of Samadhi

Hello and welcome to this fourth talk on the Five Faculties¹. To translate a little bit more literally from Pali², maybe they are the five divine forces within us, or the divine guides within us. Literally, they are the qualities or the aspects of Indra³, the great supreme god of the ancient Indian pantheon. There is this idea that we have divinity within us, that somehow our capacities and potentials—the faculties of faith, making effort, energy, mindfulness, and today, concentration—are divine. They're special. May I dare say the word, sacred.

We can take them for granted. We could just say, "Of course, it's just being human, there's nothing special about them." But in fact, in Buddhism, what we can do is special. This is where the world of the sacred, of liberation, of nobility, and of dignity begins—in our engagement.

The hindrances⁴, which we talked about last week, are those that prevent us from engaging in the world in a free, liberating, and beneficial way. They hinder the capacity for engaging mindfully or with a sense of real purpose. These faculties are their alternative. Faith is the alternative to sensual desire and greed. Courageous effort is the antidote or alternative to ill will. Yesterday, I talked about how mindfulness is the alternative to sloth and torpor. Sloth and torpor are a shutting down, becoming dull, and freezing up. The alternative is to wake up and be clear. Mindfulness has a quality of peacefulness to it, whereas sloth and torpor have the opposite: a resistance or shutting down. Mindfulness is calm, so it has that in common with sloth and torpor, but it is activated.

Today, the topic is Samadhi⁵, often translated as concentration. That is the corollary to restlessness and regret. Restlessness and regret keep us fragmented and agitated. Samadhi is that which unifies and makes things peaceful, quiet, and steady. It brings things together in a nice way so that they are operating in a harmonious flow rather than an agitated jumping around.

Samadhi is more than a laser focus of the mind. In fact, we probably shouldn't even think about it that way. One of the translators of these ancient Buddhist texts, Bhikkhu Sujato⁶, translates Samadhi as "immersion." I love this idea of immersion. One of the classic metaphors for Samadhi is beautiful, multi-colored lotus flowers opening up and floating, not on the surface of the water, but under the water. The image is of a very peaceful, calm, clear, and pure body of water, and just floating there, completely immersed in the water.

These metaphors are very common even in the modern world. Some meditators will talk about how, when they get immersed in the practice, it feels like they're dipping underwater. If the mind starts thinking, they go up, their head comes out, and they start thinking. Then they let go of the thoughts and sink back down underwater. I think that metaphor of being underwater comes from a feeling of being immersed in a wide field of well-being, peace, and subtleness where everything is collected. Everything is held together in a peaceful, quiet, settled way.

Sometimes I like the word "composed" for Samadhi. When being restless and filled with regrets, usually we're not very composed; we're unsettled. Samadhi is to be deeply settled here with everything included. To have a laser focus, which people sometimes can do, can actually push things aside too quickly. People can get really focused and deeply concentrated, but they have done that by pushing aside their distracted minds, their feelings, and their emotions. They think that those are the problem and that they should get away from them to get concentrated, which feels like a better place to be. But that continues the process of fragmentation or the exclusion of parts of ourselves from the whole.

The value of mindfulness practice is that it's an inclusive practice. Everything has a place in mindfulness—to be included, just to be seen, to be allowed to be there, and to be known. But to be known so we're not troubled by anything. This is easy to say, more difficult to do: to be present for all of it, and in that state, to become settled and gathered together from everything included. It is not so much a laser focus, but a deep settling into the bottom of the ocean, with this beautiful, soft, peaceful, refreshing sea or lake around us holding it all.

When we're restless, agitated, or filled with regrets, we can feel how we're divided up, troubled by ourselves, or agitated about ourselves. This kind of relaxing, settling, and allowing things to settle back together is not grabbing things to hold them and make them whole. It's relaxing, softening, and seeing—being mindful of everything. In that mindfulness, there is space and breathing room for everything to be there, and everything wants to settle and come together. Nothing wants to remain agitated. So, Samadhi is an action of inclusion, an action of unification.

We start with faith and confidence, which is the desire to practice. Then we practice mindfulness with courageous effort, to have the courage to say, "This is really important. It is clear that this is maybe the most important thing I can do because of where it's going." And then we practice with a clarity of mind that's clearly accompanying our experience here. We accompany everything, present and standing close to our lived experience—all of it. We find a way to stand close to it as a calm, good friend, not bothered, but offering this clear, respectful attention to how things are. That allows things to begin to settle and come together.

We gather things, steady ourselves, and practice continuity of mindfulness. The persistence and continuity allow things to gather together. It's a little bit like a snowball that is rolling down the hill, just gathering more snow and becoming bigger and bigger. Maybe the cold analogy isn't so nice, but the idea is that everything is coming in because of the continuity of practice, the steadiness, staying here, and staying mindful. Every moment of mindfulness is breathing room for what's there, so there's space for things to settle into this big ocean of Samadhi.

Samadhi is what provides mindfulness with a feeling of deep contentment, satisfaction, happiness, and peace. It becomes easier and more inspiring to practice mindfulness of whatever is happening without being bothered, judgmental, or reactive to what's happening. That reciprocal relationship between mindfulness and a deeper peace—a deeper making space for everything where everything has a place—then creates greater satisfaction and contributes to a greater sense of the wholeness of Samadhi.

Thank you. We have one more of these faculties, these divine qualities, if you don't mind, that we'll do tomorrow, which is usually translated as wisdom. It is the corollary to the hindrance of doubt, indecisiveness, or inaction. Thank you.