This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Rest; Don't Make it Worse (3 of 5) Rest. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Rest; Dharmette: Don't Make it Worse (3 of 5) Rest - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on September 04, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Rest

Hello and welcome to this Wednesday morning at IMC meditation time. One of the very significant and maybe underappreciated teachings and instructions of the Buddha has to do with the word—you don't have to remember this Pali word—Viharati¹, which means to abide. I love this word abide, to dwell. It's very closely connected for me to the idea of resting in the middle of what's happening.

In terms of meditation, the Buddha uses this word, abide, to rest within, as something that happens when meditation becomes mature. We have the ability, no matter what's happening, to find a place of rest, a place to abide in what's happening, not away from what's happening. Not to turn away and go someplace where we can relax deeply and forget about our issues in our life, but the deepest thing is when we can find a place of profound rest that is not conventional rest, but something that is deep within. Maybe at the center of all things, there's a place of rest, a place of delightful, vital, dynamic stillness, a place of rich, intelligent silence.

So maybe today, the theme of the meditation is rest. The emphasis on relaxation, which the Buddha also does, is to not just relax and then relax again and then relax again, but to relax and then, in the relaxation, to whatever degree of softening, quieting, relaxing we can have, to appreciate the sense of abiding, the sense of rest, the sense of quiet or stillness that's found in the relaxing. And then to begin to maybe have that as a cornerstone or the foundation for how we breathe, how we are embodied, how we're present for our inner life of thoughts and emotions and feelings from a vantage point of a place of rest, quiet, peace.

So, assume a meditation posture. Not to assume it, not to enter into a meditation posture forcefully or aggressively, but to do so kindly, as if you're welcomed into the posture or you're welcoming yourself into the posture, as if it's meeting a friend, the posture of meeting this friend that's here: your body, yourself. A posture that, for you, whatever posture you've taken, you can adjust in such a way that it feels like it's the balance between relaxation and being alert, between rest and clarity with this present moment.

And then to take a few long, slow, deep breaths and to relax on the exhale. Maybe the relaxation can be imagined as a wave washing through the whole body.

Letting your breathing return to normal. And again, maybe the image of gentle waves as you exhale, relaxing, softening in your face, around your eyes, cheeks, jaws.

And to relax around the shoulders, the upper chest, the upper back, around the shoulder blades. And as the shoulders and the upper torso soften, relax, sometimes it can be natural to readjust the hands, the position of how your arms and hands reside.

Softening in the belly, relaxing, so the belly begins touching into a sense of being at rest. Even if it's just momentary, ah, there it is, that place of rest.

As you exhale, allow yourself to relax into the support your body is receiving from a chair, floor, a cushion, a bed. Feeling the solid support of where your body is resting, where the weight of your body and the pull of gravity meet on some solid surface that holds up your weight. This is the place to rest. This is the place to abide, here and now, in this place, at this time. As you exhale a few more times, let whatever tension that can soften, relax, be felt like a falling away. Any tension or pressure in the thinking mind, as you exhale, let it soften, maybe fall away, washing off.

And then to feel yourself, feel the body breathing with patience, allowance, opening as if breathing is the doorway to a deep inner connection. Relax into the body's experience of breathing.

And is there, in the body's experience of breathing or close to it, a place within where there's some sense of being at rest? Maybe at the end of the exhale, maybe at the end of the inhale. Maybe with the exhale, relaxing the breathing body and being sensitive to whatever subtle, momentary sense of being at rest, of abiding within what's happening.

On the exhale, relaxing wherever you can relax that's easy. And at the end of the relaxation, can you feel something that's more at rest? Stay sensitive to where inside there's a sense of rest, of being at ease, and let the breathing arise out of that, return to that, move through it.

If you allow yourself a deeper sensitivity, or a sensitivity to the depths of your being, to whatever degree that that's available, can you find a place of rest or ease or softness, stillness, a place where things are at rest? And if you do, maybe that can be the center of all things, the center around which everything else is organized or is referenced, or from where you're aware.

And what is it like to gaze upon yourself, gaze upon the world from somewhere within that's at rest, that abides within the field of experience?

And as we come to the end of this sitting, letting yourself be at rest and gaze upon the world kindly. Gaze upon the world of your people who are close to you, not so close, far away, friends and family, and strangers, colleagues. And gaze upon them kindly. And is there some way that this practice of mindfulness, of attention, of finding a place of rest within, can support seeing the world in a friendly way, a kind way, a kindness which wishes others well?

May others be happy. May others be safe. May others be peaceful. May others be free. And may I live in this world to support this possibility. And if I can't, at least not make it worse.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Don't Make it Worse (3 of 5) Rest

Hello and welcome to this third talk in a five-part series where I'm discussing the practice of not making things worse. Not making it worse. This can seem very simplistic. It could seem maybe not profound. Buddhism is a profound religion, profound experiences of awakening and enlightenment. And this simple, ordinary thing, "just don't make it worse," can be easy maybe to dismiss. I'd like to propose that all of Buddhism can be found through this practice of "don't make it worse." That it's certainly valuable for a beginner, for ordinary life and everyday circumstances. But to live this way, with mindfulness and attention to "don't make it worse," is a path that opens to all of what Buddhism has to offer, even full awakening.

One of the ways to describe this is, say we're fuming with anger around some computer device that's not working the way we want it to work. And you've been trying to fix it and make it work for way too long, and you can feel the impact. The impact is you want to throw that device across the floor, maybe through the window. And then you hear, remember this little teaching, "don't make it worse." And so you stop, and you don't throw the device.

But then you hear again, "don't make it worse." And then you feel, "Oh, I'm so impatient because I really want to go and get an ice cream today. It's a hot day, and the ice cream would be so good. I really want that. I'm so impatient, and this computer is causing me problems." "Don't make it worse." Oh, impatience, strong clinging to some idea. "Maybe I can relax that." Then you hear, "don't make it worse." And then you see that what's left is a feeling of maybe feeling a little bit lonely from having been too much on a computer and away from people and friends. You feel loneliness is kind of a contraction and tightening, and a kind of pressure inside of feeling a little bit insecure or a little bit worried about the future, a future without any people. "Don't make it worse."

And so you find yourself relaxing that pressure, relaxing that sense of the future and the anxiety, and thinking a lot about what it means to have spent too many hours alone on a computer. And then you feel, "Look, now I'm breathing. Now it's okay. I'm here. It's nice, but actually, I feel that my breathing is contracted." "Don't make it worse." "Oh, I can relax that breathing." And then the breathing relaxes. And then you see, what does "don't make it worse" mean now? Oh, it means to quiet the mind and not be thinking so much about the future, just be here with the breathing.

And then, "don't make it worse." Oh, let me not be straining or pushing or being aggressive around being with my breath. That's making it worse. Let me be soft and relaxed and receptive around breathing. "Don't make it worse." And then you feel this, and you feel, "Oh, this feels good." And then there's a complacency, a sense of, "Oh, this is good. I'll just rest back and not have to work so hard." And then you feel like that actually feels a little bit off. There's a loss of some kind of vitality and clarity. "Don't make it worse." Open up to the clarity of being with the breath and then start seeing some deeper places of attachment, and those soften. And so the whole process goes deeper and deeper and deeper.

This idea of not making it worse is not a simplistic, everyday kind of little teaching. Inherent in it is something very profound in Buddhism. So we turn towards, we want to understand how we make it worse so we can learn not to make it worse. And what I'm offering this week is five different ways of not making it worse. And today, the idea is to rest.

The first day, the 'W' is for wait. So if you feel like you're going to make it worse, maybe you can restrain yourself from acting or speaking. And so the idea of wait, wait, don't give into the impulses that are going to make it worse. Wait. And then, as you wait, organize yourself, put yourself back together. Often, when we're going to make something worse out of anger, frustration, fear, strong desire, we're actually becoming partial. We're not fully present for all of who we are. We've narrowed in on some kind of concern and preoccupation. And so take time to wait and bring ourselves together, get all connected, settled here with ourselves.

And that allows us then to begin to be here and be at rest. Certainly, relaxing is important, but relaxing is only half of what's possible. At the end of relaxation, find a place where there's some kind of rest. Find a rest here. That's a challenge in trying situations where there's a lot of emphasis, "Something has to be done. I have to figure something out. This is dangerous for me. I better have the right rejoinder in this conversation," and what have you. The lawyers of the mind can really insist how important it is to act impulsively or do something. But no, rest.

Part of the value of resting, waiting, getting organized, resting, is that we now have a chance to respond when it's time to respond from a deeper, more healthy place, from our wisdom, from our goodwill, from our peace, from our sense of wholeness, not our sense of inadequacy or insufficiency or something. So, to be able to find a place of rest. Not to become a couch potato and just not do anything, but the emphasis in Buddhism of abiding in our experience, finding a place of rest, is that it's possible to have a place of rest from which we operate, even in the busyness of life.

We can have a sense kind of like, if you've ever done it, taking your car through a car wash. There is chaos of these big brushes and water and suds all on the outside of the windows, but inside the car, it's quiet, it's peaceful, it's safe, it's cozy even. And now you can watch all this excitement and just watch it in a peaceful way, in a way you couldn't if there was no car but you were being taken through the conveyor belt and all that stuff was spraying on you and brushing against you. So it's possible to find a place of rest inside that's like being in the car during the car wash. And if we're not being disconnected from the world, it actually allows for a deeper connection, a deeper participation in the world.

So, to find a place of rest. Not always easy, but the stepping stone to it is the other 'R,' which is to relax. Relax. And relaxing is such a profound thing. Just as I said that "don't make it worse" can be a very profound practice, relaxing can be a very profound practice for the same reasons. Anything that's in the way of profound peace, profound awakening, liberation, is something which is tense, is something which is contracted, tight. And one way of describing the whole path of Buddhist practice is to describe a deeper and deeper and deeper relaxation. Some people might say a deeper and deeper letting go, a deeper release. But if there's a need for release, there's the opposite of it, there's tightness, there's holding. And so relaxing is not a lightweight thing to do.

But then in the relaxing, see, do you relax into, at the end of the relaxation, is there a little bit of peace, a little bit of rest, a little bit of ease, a little bit of release? Appreciate that, feel that, be attuned to it. It's very easy in going through daily life to be so caught up in the world of aboutness, the things, what's happening, what I need to do, the ideas, the fears, the projections. And we overlook maybe some of the most important things that we can be in touch with: our own sense of inner well-being, our own sense of being at ease, at peace, our own deep sense that yes, I don't have to make it worse. At least I can stay close to this place where it's possible for what's most healthy, most wonderful about being alive has a chance to surface and flow through.

Being at rest in the middle of all experience doesn't mean being passive. It doesn't mean that we don't put effort into doing things. It means that somehow our hearts, somehow deep in our belly, somehow deep at the heart of awareness, of knowing, that knowing is at rest. There's no need for awareness to be in a hurry, no need for awareness to be assertive and aggressive. The awareness, the knowing, the mindfulness can be at ease while we engage fully and healthfully with what needs to be done in our life.

So to rest: wait, organize your body, your sense of self, your experience in the psychophysical being, and then rest. So maybe for these next 24 hours, until tomorrow, you want to explore this concept of inner rest. How do you understand it? How do you tap into it and touch into it? How do you protest around being at rest? What are your lawyers saying? And how can you allow some deep sense of inner rest to be something that you have as you do things in your daily life? And you might begin with things which are easy, simple things, like maybe sweeping your kitchen floor or cleaning the dishes or doing some cooking or something that for you is relatively easy, and see what it's like to do it with a reference point to a place of inner rest.

So thank you, and I look forward to continuing the series tomorrow.