This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Inclusive Awareness; Ten Reflections (9 of 10) Reconciliation. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Dharmette: Ten Reflections (9 of 10) Reconciliation; Guided Meditation: Inclusive Awareness - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on May 02, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Inclusive Awareness

Hello everyone, and welcome.

The theme for this morning's meditation—to go along with the reflection afterwards, or to cast a light on it—is something I feel is a very precious potential of mindfulness or awareness practice. That is a way of being aware where there is "no outside." To say it differently, it is being aware where everything is allowed to appear in awareness equally. There are no divisions in the mind between what is acceptable for awareness and what is not.

There might be wisdom, or other ways in which the mind differentiates between what is happening. Some things are seen as useful, healthy, or appropriate to do or think, and some things are not in the bigger picture. But while we are meditating, especially in certain circumstances, there is also the operation of a form of awareness that itself doesn't divide the world up. Everything has a place. Everything is included.

In this awareness, it doesn't mean that we are accepting or condoning anything. It just means that in this world of awareness, we are not struggling with anything. We are not dividing, wanting it to be different, or trying to hold on to it. That can all come later. But if we can learn to come to a place of this undivided attention—meaning undivisive attention where there are no lines between what we are willing to be aware of and what we are not—that gives us a vantage point to have much more wisdom about what to do and how to see things.

The beginning is this open awareness. Everything is included; there is nothing outside. For me, that is one of the most sacred things: an awareness which includes everything. There is nothing unacceptable in it.

One of the little expressions for mindfulness practice that supports this is the expression, "This too." Whatever is happening, "this too" is included in awareness. This movement of inclusion is not the same thing as going along with something. It is also not the same thing as pushing anything away. It is coming into a clear seeing, a clear knowing, a clear awareness that is independent of our participation, our engagement, or the ways we are for and against things. Of course, we will be for and against, and the attitude towards that is: "This too is included." We see that.

That seeing is where freedom occurs. Freedom from being caught in anything, pushed around by anything, or being reactive to anything. This is a kind of non-divided, non-separating attention. Everything is included. This too.

As we do this meditation, after we get settled a bit, you might try using this expression. You don't have to say it in your mind, but the attitude can be there that whatever is occurring—this too is included. This too. This too. It is almost like you are going to make more room now for the experience without being tangled in it. Just to see it. Just allow it to be there in its own pristine uniqueness, free of our involvement with it. This too. This too.

Assuming a meditation posture, begin by lowering your gaze and relaxing your eyes. If your eyes are still open, see if you can soften the gaze. There is something very profound about having soft eyes that are not fixated on anything—soft eyes that just float in the eye sockets. Then, gently close the eyes.

As if the inhale floats or gently expands, allow the inhale to be more expansive and fuller than usual. Then allow yourself to relax on the exhale. Maybe allowing your exhale to be longer by gently letting go near the end of the exhale. Letting go into the exhale.

Letting the breathing return to normal, as you inhale, become aware of any tensions or holdings in your body—places that are tight. As you exhale, soften the body. Relax the muscles. Soften the edges of your body.

As you breathe in and out, become aware of how you are emotionally—your mood, attitude, or feelings. Feeling them as you inhale, and softening them on the exhale. Whatever you are feeling, let it relax and settle with the exhale. It is almost like a massage of your feelings, breathing in and breathing out.

Then, on the inhale, feeling and sensing deeply your thinking mind—the energy, activity, and tension of thinking, however subtle. As you exhale, soften the thinking mind. As if the thinking mind is gently floating on a comfortable body of water, gently rocked by the gentle waves. The thinking mind rests on a soft surface of water, floating.

Now, centering yourself more fully in the movements in the body as you breathe. Maybe those movements of expansion and contraction as you breathe in and out are like gentle waves moving through your body.

If something else is occurring for you to be mindful of as you sit here—a sound, a thought, a feeling, a sensation in your body, an impulse—be mindful of it. Know it. Be aware of it. Include it in awareness in a clear, distinct way with the attitude: "This too is included. This too."

You have space to know and be aware. No need to be for or against, or judge it, or resist it, or hold on to it. It's enough just to know it's there. This too is included.

So that as you are aware, the awareness becomes softer. Awareness becomes looser, lighter, more open, receptive, maybe spacious. Then, into that spacious awareness, let the breathing return to it. Let the breathing enter into the space until there is something else to include. "This too is included in awareness."

[Silence]

Whatever is happening, remember to include it with "this too." You will be aware of it, but not participating.

[Silence]

And then, as we come to the end of this sitting, to whatever degree you can, get a feeling for the specialness of "no outside." No divisions in awareness. That awareness is open and available for everything equally.

Imagine in a safe social environment that you are able to be aware of others in this way. "This too." This person too can be known in awareness simply, fully, with no divisions, no separation, no for or against. The unique expression of each person in that moment can just be allowed to be in your awareness as an open field for a heart-to-heart connection. An open field for a full meeting, sensing of another human being—breathing, living, thinking human being.

In that open field, evoke your goodwill, your potential for kindness, generosity, and friendliness. Wish these other people well. Thinking of some people in your life—a single person or group of people—wish them well, maybe repeating these words to yourself silently:

May you be happy. May you be safe. May you be peaceful. May you be free.

And may it be also that this wish of care and kindness of yours spreads out towards others throughout the day. A theme for the day:

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

Thank you.

Dharmette: Ten Reflections (9 of 10) Reconciliation

Hello and welcome to this ninth talk on the Ten Reflections. For today and tomorrow, the topics are reconciliation and healing. Today the topic is reconciliation, and tomorrow it is healing.

I associate these two with becoming whole—becoming whole interpersonally, or becoming whole for oneself. It is a holism where we are not divided through fear, greed, or hatred. It is a kind of inclusion, a coming together, a meeting together. I think "reconciliation" comes from a root meaning in Latin "to come together" or "to meet."

It might be nice to go through these ten briefly. I connect them all with a certain kind of sequence, a logic of how one follows the other. There are other ways in which they can follow—it is not required that they follow this sequence—but I kind of delight in this sequence and the story that they tell.

If we find a sense of meaning and purpose in this life, then that gives us a guide for what we are going to do in this life of ours. It is important then to be able to act, to have agency. A certain degree of autonomy. Our agency, our doing, is not something that is permitted by others only, or enabled by other people. We are not dependent on others, but we have an autonomous ability to live a life of meaning and purpose.

As we act—and as we act singularly for ourselves in a certain way, maybe together with others—then we start to get to know ourselves in relationship to what is important for us, what drives us, the purpose and meaning, and the actions we do. We can form a clear sense of identity, a clear sense of who we are. That is very important. If we are lost to ourselves, not sure who we are, it can be a source of all kinds of challenges.

In Buddhism, our identity doesn't come from some inherent essence of who we are or how we were born. The essence that Buddhism bases our lives on is the shifting identities based on how we live, what we do, and how we act. Key to Buddhism is acting ethically. It is the ethics and virtues we live by that become our primary identity. From that, we can have a sense of dignity. The sense of personal value of knowing that we are dedicated to not harming anyone. In fact, we might be dedicated to the opposite: to benefiting self and others.

So with this dedication towards action—and action for the benefit of others and for oneself—we enter into the world of community. Just like identity is something that is shifting and changing, community is not something static and fixed. Community is also something that changes and morphs depending on the people we are with and how we are relating to people. We can get a sense that our community can be more open, more inclusive of the people we feel part of. Our actions and our ethics help create a healthy sense of community.

Then, with community, we can get to know people in a deeper way and feel the kinship, the common humanity that we share. We all feel like we are kin, we are all family. With that, there can be a dedication towards resolving fractured relationships, conflict in relationships, and divisiveness in society. We have a huge need to come back into union, back into unity, back into wholeness together, and back into a sense of community and kinship.

So there is the work of reconciliation and healing. Reconciliation has to do with the interpersonal, and the way I define these terms for this purpose here—these two weeks—is that I think of reconciliation being the interpersonal work, and healing being the deep personal work that happens in relationship to community and others. Some people might not see these two terms as so separate.

Reconciliation is a very central movement in Buddhism, maybe without literally that word being used. The Buddha put tremendous emphasis on the activity of uniting people who are divided, and supporting the unification of people who are united. Wrong Speech¹—one of the definitions of Wrong Speech is to divide the people who are united, and to keep divided the people who are divisive.

Built into the precepts² and the Eightfold Path, and the whole foundation of Buddhist practice, is an orientation to live a life that is focused, considered, and concerned with the sense of unity that we have with others—the sense of coming together in harmony. The Buddha's clearest way of doing that was in his own community, the monastic community, and finding a way for them to live together in harmony and unity, and not in division. In fact, people who create a real schism in the monastic community receive the most severe consequence in monastic life, which is that you are no longer allowed to be a monastic. It is such an important thing to create that unity.

That takes work. I have been involved with conflict resolution work; I have been chair of a conflict committee for some fifteen years and was sitting as a mediator for lots of conflicts. I can tell you that it is a lot of work, but it is really worthwhile work because it is practice work. It is Buddhist practice to enter into this world of our relationships with others and really get to the bottom of them. To really understand ourselves well, understand other people well, find common ground, and work with our divisiveness, our anger, and our resentment. It takes a lot of time sometimes.

But the consequences in the long term tend to be much better than remaining divisive. Divisiveness and anger sometimes can have immediate consequences—pushing people away, for example—but they have long-term negative consequences. So it is better to spend the time, to invest in the time upfront for reconciliation and coming together, than it is to take the easy, simple, or short way of anger, resentment, and hostility that will have repercussions, sometimes for the rest of a lifetime for some people.

So, it is possible to reconcile. In Buddhism, a huge part of this process of reconciliation is not looking for forgiveness, not looking for an apology. There is certainly a time and place for that. But the emphasis in Buddhism is first and foremost to be able to do this introspection: to understand the pain and the downside of living with resentment, living with anger, and even sometimes being attached to hurt or attached to being a victim.

We really want to look and see, and begin to dissolve in a healthy, appropriate way the anger we have. To let go of the resentments we hold on to, and then to cultivate a sincere and authentic sense of goodwill for others. This movement of letting go of anger and cultivating goodwill can look a lot like forgiveness, but in some ways, it is simpler because it doesn't require something from someone else. It doesn't require the complexity of forgiveness that sometimes exists. Forgiveness is a form of generosity—giving for-giving—which I think can be quite beautiful. But in the Buddhist approach—though there are other approaches—is to do this work for yourself and then be in conversation with others.

In some of the places in the world where there have been political reconciliation processes, the word "truth" has been associated with that. There has to be truth-telling. Things have to really come out in the open to have reconciliation happen. Once we do our own work and are no longer holding resentments, holding ourselves apart, being critical of others, and seeing them through angry eyes, then maybe we are ready to speak the truth. Talk about what happened, talk about the pain and the hurt, talk about the difficulties we've had, but without attacking people, without poking them with mean statements.

It is profound work to look for reconciliation. It is not always possible because it requires two people willing to do part of the work. It is certainly impossible if both people don't want to do it. If one person does the inner work and creates the conditions—the openness, the kindness, friendliness, and goodwill—then sometimes other people will come along in time. Sometimes it takes a long time before people are ready for some kind of reconciliation, some kind of meeting to work things out. But then we prepare ourselves for that and make sure that we are "clean," that we are not holding on to something that is going to make it difficult when the time finally comes.

Part of the reason why reconciliation is such an important thing for Dharma practitioners is that if we are contributing to the divisiveness, the divisions, the separation, that is a way of dividing ourselves. That is a way of shutting down part of ourselves. That is a way of living in a way that we are not complete; we are not whole. We are not including all of ourselves in the field of awareness.

To become free—to use mindfulness to become freer and freer—we have to really meet, confront, and work with the places where we are divided, caught, stuck, and tight. It is part of the wonderful gift of mindfulness practice that sooner or later, as we do this practice, we have to meet these parts of ourselves that sometimes have been buried, closed, unwilling to look at our hurt, our anger, our resentments, and unwilling to think about dissolving them or working through them. It is a work of a lifetime sometimes, but it is such a great thing to be part of reconciliation and healing—that social healing.

So, what is your experience of conflict, resentment, and divisiveness that you have been part of? And what is your interest in reconciliation? How can reconciliation and working on this divisiveness that exists in families, friends, and communities be really important for you personally? How might it be really part of a life effort that has tremendous meaning and purpose to work through these things?

Now we are back at the beginning of these ten reflections: the very thing of reconciliation itself is part of a very meaningful, purposeful life.

Thank you very much. Tomorrow we will do the last of these ten reflections: that of healing. Thank you.