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Guided Meditation: Letting Go into the Moment; Dharmette: Dharmic Reciprocity (2 of 5): Wholehearted Attention - Dawn Neal

The following talk was given by Dawn Neal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 22, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Letting Go into the Moment

The invitation now is to start to settle into a posture, acknowledging however you are and wherever you are right now. Sense into whatever confidence or trust is present, meeting it with appreciation and kindness.

Root yourself in the integrity of your posture. Take a moment to really notice whether you are sitting, standing, or lying down. Center your weight over your hip points or your feet. Allow your head and your spine to be aligned. With a couple of relaxed, more intentional, and perhaps deeper breaths, relax into that uprightness. Soften your eyes and let go. Release and offer the exhale; receive the inhale. Receive the awareness of this moment, here and now.

Allow the eyes and the tongue to be soft. Invite the breath to be natural and normal. For the next few minutes, whatever your anchor of attention is—the breath, sound, or the body—the invitation is to give yourself over completely to it. Let go into it. Be in contact with the moment. Recall your intention for meditating today, for being here today, and then allow the body to completely relax. Invite the mind to relax. Attentively and completely, be with each moment.

If distractions come, the instruction is to meet the distracted mind with kindness and respect. Graciously include that distraction in this moment of awareness, then return to your anchor of attention.

Stabilize the attention by getting interested in each little arising in the moment. Notice each part of the breath, each waver or change in sound, and each moment of silence or stillness. Give each thing in your experience its own time. Listen deeply, companioning whatever is present while resting softly in the moment.

Let go. Let all of who you are release into the attention, into the breath, and into the moment. Rest and ride in the flow of "now."

In the last few moments of our formal meditation together, please consider recollecting these moments of meditation in an appreciative way. Recall every little glimmer of mindfulness, awareness, calm, patience, and trust. In a wholehearted, complete way, gather those moments and savor them. Take them in as nourishment, appreciating and respecting the time you have offered this practice today.

Then, cast your internal gaze out to the others in your life, offering them the benefits of this practice. May they be safe, happy, peaceful, and free. Allow those good wishes to extend even further out, as far as they want to go. May all beings be happy, safe, peaceful, and free. May the benefits of our practice here together ripple out through our lives, all the lives we touch, and all the lives they touch, as an offering to the world.

Thank you for the sincerity of your practice.

Dharmette: Dharmic Reciprocity (2 of 5): Wholehearted Attention

Thank you everyone for your practice and your presence here today. Yesterday, we explored the themes of confidence and trust. Today, we will continue our exploration of the gifts we can offer the Dharma¹—the concept of dharmic reciprocity—and how these gifts can resonate, return to us in a different form, and feed our meditation, maturity, and happiness.

Today we will explore the benefits of wholehearted attention and respect in the practice. The Buddha named these qualities "Gifts of a Good Person" in a discourse about offering with integrity. The language suggests he was talking about the attitude of the person as well as the process of giving itself.

Wholehearted attention is experienced as respect by others. I recently heard an anecdote about a letter written by the famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass. In this letter, he recalled being deeply impressed by meeting Abraham Lincoln. Even though he and Lincoln were on the same side of the abolitionist cause, they differed in their approaches, and Douglass had been a significant critic of Lincoln. However, when they met, Douglass was moved by how completely Lincoln paid attention to him. Lincoln met him wholeheartedly and respectfully where he was.

There are accounts, too, of the Buddha himself offering this kind of respect through wholehearted attention. The Buddha paid close attention to all kinds of people who came to ask questions, debate, or receive teachings, regardless of their point of view or their caste background. There is a story of a leper named Suppabuddha² who came to the outskirts of a large gathering where the Buddha was teaching. He had initially come hoping there would be food, as he was hungry, but when he heard the Buddha teaching, he decided to stay and listen. The Buddha scanned the crowd and attentively noticed that this man was there and that he was ready to hear the Dhamma. He offered teachings specifically tailored to him, and the man reached full awakening. Rather than casting the person out or ignoring him because lepers were reviled at the time, the Buddha met him exactly where he was.

This kind of wholehearted attention and respect doesn't just benefit people on a relational level; it also applies seamlessly to the practice of meditation itself. Giving complete attention to the most ordinary moments of practice begins to increase interest in the moment. It is not "giving to get"—the "gaining mind" does not work. Rather, giving of one’s self and one’s attention wholeheartedly is like an offering. It is a deep listening that naturally inspires a response and invites more gifts from the practice.

Gradually, mindful awareness can become more continuous and stable. Awareness becomes more resilient, less thrown off by momentary distractions. There is a deeper presence, and then the heart and mind begin to receive all kinds of benefits from that continuity. Joy can even arise for no "good" reason.

The good news is that we can cultivate this through completeness—giving ourselves over to being in the moment and attending closely with respect. Here are some ways that can work:

First, it can be helpful to set a resolve or an aspiration to be interested and attentive. This includes getting interested in interest itself, as well as its opposite—boredom—which often contains an element of aversion.

Another way is to have a respectful, unhurried attitude toward whatever is coming up. Give it its own time and turn to it completely. Just like with deep, attentive listening, you don’t have to agree with what is there, but it still helps to offer it respect.

Speaking of respect, it can be incredibly beneficial to offer yourself internal respect for doing this practice, no matter how it is turning out. Respect everything you meet. When I served as a hospital chaplain, I would visit people from all walks of life. I soon discovered that offering complete attention and respect opened the door to much more interesting conversations. It served them better, and it served me better too.

This was especially true when encountering difference. Getting interested in someone who didn’t seem open at first often revealed important points of contact, thoughts, or worldviews that would open into a deeply satisfying, even loving, conversation. Wholehearted attention can feel like love.

This is equally true of being in rapport with our own experience. Just as an attentive listener can help words and feelings flow, wholehearted attending to the moment opens things up. It creates a possibility for a range of experience that might not normally be available. Metabolizing emotions and obvious thoughts is just the beginning. There is also a wholehearted learning mindset we can take toward the tiniest roots of a thought, sensation, or sound. This supports a new level of freedom. The simplest objects and experiences can become beautiful, filled with a sense of wonder and awe for the ordinary.

Notice these simple moments and the satisfaction that can be there. All of this feeds a flexible, fluid continuity of mindful awareness, which in itself feeds contentment and opens the possibility for a deeper way of seeing and being. In other words, if you give yourself over completely to the practice, the gifts you receive can include intrinsic interest and the beauty of the ordinary. There is a resonance between the offering and the receiving.

Wholehearted, unwavering, respectful attention opens the gates of the Dharma practice wide. It echoes a very famous teaching by Ajahn Chah³, one of the root teachers in the Thai Forest Tradition. He said: "If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace."

This is an invitation to wholeheartedly let go into the Dharma and into your practice. Thank you for your kind attention. Between now and tomorrow, I invite you to notice the effect of offering wholehearted attention to another person in your life, or to yourself. I would love to hear about it.