This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Happiness; Ten Reflections (7 of 10) Community. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Happiness; Dharmette: Ten Reflections (7 of 10) Community - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on April 30, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Happiness

Hello everyone, and welcome to this morning's meditation. For this week and last week, I am connecting the meditation to be relevant for the Dharma talk I give afterwards—the fifteen-minute talk on these ten reflections. Today, the reflection will be on community.

I had associated community with love as the corollary that could go along with it. But as I prepared to sit down to lead this meditation, I couldn't quite get myself connected to or evoke this capacity or interest in teaching about or guiding you in love or mettā¹. What superseded it, or what seems to be stronger as I bring this to mind, is happiness. Maybe there's a connection—I hope there's a connection—between happiness and love, happiness and goodwill. I don't know which is harder for you to connect to: your basic goodwill for yourself and to others, or a sense of happiness, delight, and joy.

When I think of community this morning, I think of my great delight and appreciation for others. I feel so fortunate to live in a world where I have encounters with wonderful people. As I've practiced over these years, it seems like people are becoming more wonderful the more I get to know them and the more I have the opportunity to meet them behind their public expressions. I see their depths and wonderfulness.

Maybe the happiness is with oneself. I think I have become more of a friend to myself, or my mind is more friendly with me. To sit down to meditate and to be present brings a sense of delight and joy.

You are welcome to ignore my words if the topic of happiness and the way I present it doesn't speak to you. There are all kinds of reasons for that, some situational regarding what is happening in your life these days.

To begin the meditation, assume a meditation posture that you enjoy, that is nice for you. To help cultivate a sense of clear attention and clarity about this moment, find a nice balance. If we are too relaxed in our posture, it can be wonderful, but it might not bring the same kind of joyful vitality as when we are not completely relaxed but also not tense—a nice balance of alertness in the posture.

Gently closing the eyes, look below or behind the ordinary flow of your thinking—the ordinary preoccupations and perspectives that are active for you. Behind it, more deeply, is there some way in which you can feel a deeper kinship with yourself? A deeper positive regard or appreciation for this person who has accompanied you your whole life?

Through ups and downs, struggles and difficulties, can you sit here in a simple, nonverbal way with an appreciation, friendliness, or valuing of this person who is yourself? Meditation is not meant to be punishment or meant to be demanding of yourself things which you are not. Meditation begins with appreciation and allowance of yourself to be as you are. Appreciating this, is there a way to feel some happiness of accompanying yourself?

Being in touch, being connected here and now to your breathing, to your body. Not only to your emotions right now, but for your capacity to feel and have emotions—even difficult ones—and for your mind and your thoughts.

In the midst of yourself, as if it carries with it a wave of appreciation or a wave of happiness, feel the experience of breathing as it moves through your body. Breathing with a light touch or mindfulness. Maybe with a small half-smile that reminds you that happiness, delight, and appreciation are allowed as you meditate.

This happiness of the Dharma is not something you create or drive from the control tower in the head. Rather, it is like a refreshing pool that you gently lean back into to relax and to feel. Breathe with a gentle wave of breathing.

[Silence]

Sometimes there can be a certain happiness or contentment from the opportunity to practice meditation. Even when it is difficult, it is a phenomenally worthwhile and valuable thing to do in the big picture of things—maybe better than the alternatives. Maybe there is a contentment, inspiration, or happiness with this opportunity to practice that guides you into the present moment, here and now, and a quieting of the mind.

[Silence]

And then, as we come to the end of this meditation, are there people in your life that bring you a sense of delight and joy? Can you imagine taking that delight, joy, and appreciation and spreading it outwards to others? It is not specific or limited to any individual, but something that spreads outwards to all beings.

May all beings be happy, and may I share my happiness with all beings.

May all beings be safe, and may I contribute safety to all. May I be safe for others.

May all beings be peaceful, and may I interact peacefully with others.

May all beings be free, and may I free them from my judgments and expectations, even my needs, allowing everyone an opportunity to be appreciated and to appreciate themselves.

May all beings be happy.

[Bell rings]

Thank you.

Dharmette: Ten Reflections (7 of 10) Community

So today, the topic for reflection is community.

To restate what I've said before, these ten reflections that we're exploring this week and last week were inspired by orientations that people like hospital chaplains and spiritual caregivers who offer interfaith care use. This means they are not proselytizing², but they are trying to understand the people they are with, how they are suffering, and where their challenges are.

These ten areas represent fundamental needs that many people have. Chaplains will listen for where something is broken, ruptured, or challenged for people. One of those places is community. If a community that a person has felt part of is strained—if there is something broken or a rip in the community—it can be very difficult.

Sometimes people who are chaplains will meet with people who are dying. Sometimes the final thing that they want to do is to repair their relationship to others, to their community, to their family, or to a friendship. I was surprised many years ago to go visit someone on their deathbed. I knew that their death was going to be any hour. The person was still alive enough and clear enough that they asked me to be involved in marital counseling. In my naivety, I was surprised that in such a crucial moment—the last hours of a person's life—that that is what they wanted to do. But I shouldn't have been so surprised. Often, community connections and relationships are so important for people that repairing them helps us feel complete. It feels like there are no loose ends; apologies have been made or repair has been done.

Community begins, probably, with gestating in our mother's belly, where everything of who we are is really connected and involved with a single person. Then we are born, and the community is usually fairly small—often immediate family. Children are primarily bonded to their parents, siblings, and a small group of people.

As we grow up, the sense of community can expand to become the neighbors, the friends in the neighborhood, or an expanded network of cousins, uncles, and aunts. It can expand outward into our schoolmates. At some point, maybe it is the town that we have a sense of community with. We don't realize it so much until we've moved away and we meet someone from our town; we feel how delightful it is to have so much in common culturally and experientially.

As this process of growing up develops, the community can become larger and larger. Sometimes the community can include people that we don't know—or don't know yet—but we have enough in common, enough appreciation and value, that we feel a connection to them. When we meet them, we feel that connection. For example, meeting someone who went to our same high school who we didn't even know, but when we meet them, we feel a sense of connection.

Sometimes I've been in communities like monasteries where I felt it was more like a village. I didn't have deep friendships with everyone in the monastery, but I felt like everyone was part of my village. There was a benefit of the doubt, an appreciation, a valuing, or a willingness to hold them in a wide-open heart with acceptance from living the shared life together.

Exactly what community is, is maybe not so easy to define. It is a different thing for different people, and the need we have for community varies from person to person. But it is a fundamental need for a human being. We don't even develop as a human being without the mirroring relationships we have with others, like our parents.

For me, the representation for that is language. We only learn language in community, in connection to others. If we decided that we have had enough of this communal language and we are going to start speaking our own language that no one else knows, then the very function of language—to be able to communicate between people—disappears. We learn much more than just language from other people; we learn gestures, non-verbal forms of communication, values, ways of relating, and customs. A lot of things come together that add up to what we're familiar with, what we enjoy, what we like, and what we feel at home in.

Community is a place where many people feel a sense of belonging. Sometimes there is an expectation that community should be easy, that we should just have it automatically, or that other people should help us feel like we belong. One aspect of community goes back to the earlier reflection on agency. Community is a place where we can act, where we have some agency, where we can contribute and do something. If it's only one way—the community takes care of me—then I think that it's much more fragile. It is maybe not quite the same feeling of belonging that we have when we feel like we have a role and can contribute.

To be a contributor to the community, to give gifts, is one of the most classic ways of supporting healthy community. Gift-giving can be very small forms of gifts, but it helps create community. Acts of listening to others, volunteering, and doing small acts of kindness are also vital. Here at IMC (Insight Meditation Center), one of the ways that many people feel a strong sense of community is when they start becoming a volunteer. There are other ways of feeling a strong sense of community, for sure. It's quite special to just be together and share a practice and the teachings with others who are interested in it. But when we can invest ourselves, offer part of ourselves, and feel we have that ability, agency, and capacity—that's one of the ways that some people help create a sense of community for themselves, rather than passively waiting for community to happen. We are the builders of community.

Community is difficult. Social relationships are hard. Part of being in a community is, again, not expecting everything to go the way we want or everything to be easy, but to contribute to reconciliation. What does it take to find harmony with differences? What does it take to work together with the challenges we have in community?

I've seen over and over again that sometimes community—and the sense of connection to others, warmth, friendship, and depth of connection—is facilitated by healthy involvement with the challenges of community life. We must stay there with the conflicts that we can have, get to know each other in relationship to the conflict, understand people and understand ourselves, and find our way through it. This is a way of deepening a sense of investment and value in a community. A healthy sense of belonging comes from the work of helping to create the community and keep it together. Of course, we can't do that with everyone, but it involves many layers of what we mean by the community.

This year in the United States, there's a national election. What does it mean to be in community with a whole nation? How do we relate in a way that we contribute, support, and work with the differences that we have, rather than shutting down or automatically creating opposition or "us versus them"? When we have "us versus them," we limit the possibility of community, of communion, of meeting together.

In Norwegian, the language I grew up with, the word for community is samfunn³. That means "meeting together." Where do we meet others together? Is there a meeting of mutual care and mutual support? How do we contribute to that care and support?

For some people, one of the most fundamental needs—and maybe even spiritual needs—is a sense of community. This is a sense of belonging, a sense of having things in common, a place where we can act and make a difference, and a place where we are willing to be in conflict and find a way.

It is not uncommon to point out that sometimes the people we have the most difficulty with are the people we have the most in common with. Somehow our differences stand out and are highlighted in such a way that small differences loom really big. Sometimes there are great wars between people for very slight differences; from far away, people can't believe that that's what they're fighting about.

So rather than fighting, one of my definitions for a healthy community is a community in which, if I'm going to be involved in conflict, I want to be connected to these people. I feel like with these people we can find a way, no matter how difficult the personal and social challenges are. These are the people with whom I would like to help find a way for us, and have the honesty, dedication, and work ethic to do so. That doesn't mean that it's always the other people who want to work things out, but if I have this desire—"Oh, these are the people I want to be in conflict with"—then conflict doesn't rupture the community. Actually, it becomes part of the work of strengthening it, developing it, and making it grow.

For you, if you're interested now, you might spend this next twenty-four hours reflecting on what community has meant for you. What are the challenges? What are the ruptures? What are the healings? What are the benefits that have lived for you in your life? How has your sense of community expanded as you've gotten older? Has it expanded, or has it gotten smaller?

I believe—and maybe it's just my belief—that as people develop spiritually, the sense of community, and how we hold people in our heart as our community and our fellow humans, expands wider and wider. It expands until we have a certain sense that everyone is part of our community. We include everyone; there are no divisions.

How does that work for you? Has community for you become narrower, or has it become bigger? In what ways have you discovered a greater sense of community and a greater sense of receptivity to everyone being part of your community? Is community something that you create by the quality of your heart, or is it something you're expecting that others create for and provide you? I think the former—the ways in which we contribute to a sense of community—is characteristic of spiritually mature people.

So what do you think of that? I hope that this very important topic of community, and these few words, has given you something to think about and reflect on. I hope as you do it that you appreciate that there are many ways of being a community, some of them very unique to individuals. Do not have someone else's idea of how it should be for you, but really reflect deeply on how it is for you. Maybe you'll have an opportunity to talk to others about it, be mirrored, hear others, and explore this really important topic.

Thank you for this community that we have, and my sense of connection to all of you. It creates a sense for me of community with a wide world out there, far beyond Redwood City. It brings me great delight.

Thank you.