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Guided Meditation: Safety; Dharmette: Poems of the Nuns (3 of 5) Patacara - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on August 14, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Safety

Hello everyone and welcome to this meditation session. For this morning, I'd like to say something about the importance of safety. When our psychophysical system, our body and mind, really feels safe, something settles deeply. Something relaxes in the body, the heart, the mind that supports the deepening of the Dharma life, the deepening of meditation.

For many people, a fair amount of feeling not safe, feeling anxious or afraid, doesn't have to do with here and now. Sometimes with anxiety, it has to do with predictions, or assumptions, or imaginations of the future. Sometimes it's a deep conditioning from things that have happened in the past which are no longer happening now. These forms of not feeling safe or feeling afraid need our care, need our love, need our attention for sure. At the same time, we can also remind ourselves that there is safety here and now. Hopefully, when you sit down to meditate, you're sitting at a time, in a place, in a situation where it's relatively safe.

For now, for here and now, it's possible to remind yourself of that safety. It's an offering that you make to yourself, give to yourself. Not to dismiss the fears and anxieties, but to put them in context, to allow a settling and a peacefulness that maybe can hold anxieties with a generosity, a care, a love where we're not so caught in them. We're not so under their influence. But rather, our fears and anxieties come under the influence of our ability to offer safety, care, and love, where we're independent of them. The influence and direction is from us to them, not our anxieties to us.

So as we sit today, to the degree to which here and now, in the room, the place you're sitting at this particular time—not in an hour, not later in the day, but here and now—there is a degree of safety or tranquility or peace here, around you, in you. Not to override the fear, as I said, but in addition to it, so we're not so caught in the fear. We hold it in the wider context.

This is one of the gifts of meditation. And the deeper the meditation goes, the more, maybe indirectly, without it being an intention, we are creating the conditions within of deeper and deeper feelings of peace and safety, so something deeper and deeper can let go and relax and open up.

Like we did yesterday, I'll let this meditation be mostly silent so that you can maybe remind yourself of the degree of the safety that's here and now. And if there's not, then maybe call on your love and compassion for that, your care.

When in this meditation you find yourself drifting off in thought, wandering away from the present moment, wandering away from the breath, it might very well be an opportune time to gently remind yourself of the safety that is here. Maybe saying the word gently to yourself, "safe, safe," and then return here and now to the breathing, to the present moment. The value of this is that often what takes us away from the present moment might be some kind of anxiety or fears, something like not feeling safe. And if something else takes us away from the present moment, it still might be settling, easier to come back, if you say the word "safe," reminding yourself of that. So we'll sit silently today.

If you are distracted, if you're flowing along with your thoughts, consider whether or not you're better off returning to whatever degree of safety and peace there is here and now. Whatever degree you find it in your body, in your heart, your mind, or in the location you're sitting here and now, helping you to stay here and now, flowing in the present moment instead of flowing with your thoughts.

And then, as we come to the end of this sitting, to recognize or feel any degree of calm or peace or safety that's currently available for you, maybe somewhere in the body, the heart, the mind. Maybe if you gently say the word "safe," something in you resonates, smiles, recognizes it. Our body and mind benefit from bathing in the sense of safety that we can provide here and now, that we can touch into here and now.

And then imagine now bringing safety, peace to others. The gift of safety, so that people feel safe when they're with us. They don't feel any assertion from us, any demands. They don't feel a need to take care of us or worry about us or protect themselves from us. A very simple gift of safety that comes from being peaceful, at ease, settled in ourselves.

May it be that we go through the day creating safety, offering safety to this world where so many people feel unsafe. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And to the degree that we know something about these four states, may we create the conditions for others to have the same. Thank you.

Dharmette: Poems of the Nuns (3 of 5) Patacara

So hello and welcome to this third of five talks focusing on the poems of the earliest female disciples of the Buddha, the ones that became fully awakened, the early nuns. Yesterday, the poem that I read had involved a conversation between Kisagotami and Patacara. And Patacara, the venerable Patacara, was probably one of the most important women teachers in the time of the Buddha. There's more references to her being a teacher, especially to other nuns and other women, than there is to any other woman at the time of the Buddha in these early texts. In these poems, there's a number of poems that refer to her, including one which is her own poem, which is her enlightenment poem.

I'd like to read that. Yesterday, I told a little bit of her story, where she had phenomenal degrees of suffering with the death of her whole family in the course of one day, or learning about it over the course of one day: two young children, her husband, her parents, her brother. So she became a nun, but maybe it wasn't so easy for her even as such. She practiced diligently, and this is her story that she tells in a poem. She's talking about herself; this is what she was thinking:

Young men gain wealth by plowing fields, sewing seeds in the ground, caring for children and wife. But why is it that I, thorough in virtuous conduct, doing the Buddha's instruction, not lazy or proud, have not attained release, have not attained Nibbana?¹

With feet washed, I watched the water, the foot-washing water, flowing from high ground to low.

She's sitting outside and she's doing what was as common in the ancient world as maybe, hopefully for us, is washing our hands through the day. People walked around barefoot, so they were cleaning their feet off.

With feet washed, I watched the water, the foot-washing water flowing from high ground to low. With this, the mind concentrated, like a thoroughbred horse.

Taking an oil lamp, I entered my hut. Looking over the bed, I sat down on the bed. Taking a needle, I pulled out the wick. As the flame went out, the mind was freed.

This is a story of a person who practiced diligently, sincerely, but perhaps there was a way in which she was trying a little bit too hard, maybe too diligent. So sitting down to wash her feet, she probably poured the water out or poured it over her feet, and then watching the water flowing down the hill, she became concentrated. She kind of lost her self-consciousness. It was something about the movement of the water flowing that pulled her into the world of the water flowing, like being absorbed in watching the water flow in a river going by. And so, doing something completely unselfconscious, a simple, ordinary thing, putting down the effort to practice—almost like because she had this momentum of a strong mind, strong practice mind—when she put something to rest and just got absorbed in the water flowing down, her mind became concentrated.

Then she entered into her hut. There were no windows back then, so maybe it was evening and the hut was particularly dark. And this kind of simplicity, the radical simplicity of just looking at her bed... people who get concentrated, they can see things and everything stands out sharply, clearly for itself. You see a flower—wow, just a flower. You see an ordinary device, the cup you drink water out of, and it's just that pristine perfection of a cup or a flower or anything at all. When you're concentrated, you kind of see in a different way. And here she is just seeing something ordinary, her bed.

Then she sat down on that bed, and because it was dark, she had an oil lamp. The oil lamp has a little wick coming out of the oil, and in order to turn off the light, she didn't flick a switch; she pulls the wick out of the oil, and then the flame went out. In a concentrated mind, she was just right there for the flame, just like she had been for the bed. Maybe the whole world was just that flame, that light. And something about when the light went out, something in her mind let go, and she was freed. Some kind of peaceful focus on something like a flame... maybe as the flame went out, even that focus kind of evaporated or dissolved, and there was a deeper letting go, and then she was free.

So that's Patacara's story. And I love that it has to do with these very ordinary moments that were liberating. There's a long history in Buddhism of recognizing that liberation doesn't necessarily happen as we're practicing. But as we practice, we're creating the conditions—the concentration, the stillness, the peace, the sense of safety—that when we're least expecting it, something can let go deeply. We're right here, and we let go.

That's Patacara's story. And then there are two poems, or maybe more, where she is the teacher for a woman or for a nun. She kind of refers back to her first poem, the way she was thinking, and the little experience of washing the feet. This makes sense; teachers often will teach from their own experience, from how they were thinking about things that worked for them, and they're kind of offering that to others. She starts by referring back to her own reflection about young men who work hard and can then support their family, as a representation or as a metaphor for how a practitioner can also engage fully and hard in order to become free.

This poem is supposed to be her teaching to 30 nuns. She says:

Taking a pestle, young men pound grain, so caring for their children and wife, they gain wealth. Young men gain wealth. Do what the Buddha teaches. Having done it, you won't regret it. Quick, wash your feet, sit to one side, and settle on a tranquil mind. Do what the Buddha teaches.

And then a narrator for the next two verses says:

Hearing these words of Patacara's teaching, the nuns washed their feet, sat to one side, settled on a tranquil mind. They did what the Buddha teaches. During the first watch of the night, they recollected their past lives. During the middle watch of the night, they purified the Divine Eye. During the last watch of the night, they shattered the mass of darkness.

Then the 30 nuns said to Patacara... well, the narrator goes on:

Standing up, the 30 nuns bowed down to her feet and said: "We have accomplished your instruction. We will live honoring you as the 30 gods honor the great god Indra,² who is unconquered in battle. Free of taints, we have the three knowledges."³

It's a simple poem where Patacara encourages them to practice, they do, and not only do they attain liberation, but this is a remarkable thing about these poems: the confidence, the clarity, the possibility of spiritual maturation that is championed here. They attain the same level of liberation as the Buddha. These three watches of the night—the first two watches are something that the Buddha is supposed to have attained the night of his awakening: the recollection of past lives, and the Divine Eye, which is seeing how people are born and die according to their karma. And then, the shattering of the mass of darkness: liberation. The first two watches are not required to be liberated, but to be a Buddha, full potential like a Buddha, this is what one attains. They're called the three knowledges. And so here, they point this out; the women too have this.

Then there's one more, Patacara teaching to a woman named Uttara:

Taking a pestle, young men pound grain. Caring for children and wives, they gain wealth. Apply yourself to what the Buddha teaches; you will have no regrets. Quick, wash your feet and sit to one side. Having established the mind unified and well-settled, consider mental constructs as not-self, as something other than self.

Then Uttara says:

I heard her words, Patacara's advice. I washed my feet and sat to the side. During the first watch of the night, I recollected my past lives. During the middle watch of the night, I purified the Divine Eye. During the last watch of the night, I shattered the mass of darkness. I then emerged, endowed with the three knowledges. Then, addressing Patacara, "I have accomplished what you instructed. I will live honoring you. Free of taints, I have the three knowledges."

I love these two poems: Patacara becoming awake and then her teaching the other nuns, and then in their appreciation of what they were taught, that they will honor her, revere her, respect her for her gift. Here we get a sense of one of the most important teachers of the time of the Buddha, and how she was engaged with teaching. It's one thing to say in Buddhist traditions that a woman could be enlightened; it turns out it's another thing to say that it's okay for them to be a teacher. There are traditions where they say women can be enlightened, but there's still a kind of discrimination against women stepping up into the teacher role. And here we have these wonderful stories of not only a nun, a woman who is a teacher, but an effective teacher, a teacher that can guide people and support people to their own awakening.

So, Patacara. Thank you, thank all of you. Thank Patacara. Thank all the lineage of nuns and women teachers down through the ages upon whose shoulders we stand as well. Thank you very much.