Virtuous Relaxation

Venerable Thubten Semkye gives a short talk and leads a guided meditation on how to imbue our activities in daily life with a good motivation, so that we are relaxed throughout the day and bring a sense of joy and balance to whatever activities we engage in.

Transcript

Good morning,

Everybody.

It's nice to be back.

I've had somewhat of an absence on the daily Dharma gathering tribe,

As Jen said,

So I'm really glad to be back in the tribe.

And so before I do my little sharing on relaxation,

I'd like to bring all of us into the space that we're sitting in this morning and to connect with our bodies and minds,

Maybe using our breath to center and focus our energies,

And then I'll do a short motivation and then we'll go from there.

Really connect with your body.

If there's any fatigue or any overexertion or pain,

Use your breath to gently focus on that place,

Imagining it loosening and letting go.

Try bringing your mind to be aware only of your breath,

The inhalation,

The exhalation.

So if any thoughts come up or any outside noises or smells,

Just gently bring your attention back to your breath.

Kind of bring it to home.

Breath is kind of like our home.

And then setting our motivation and intention to being together today.

There's been a lot going on in the world lately that for many of us is upsetting and disturbing and concerning,

Opening our hearts to those that are really experiencing grave suffering.

And to bring it back again and again to one of the fundamental truths of the Buddhist teachings is that every living being without exception,

From the time they wake up in the morning to the time they go to bed at night,

Wherever that is in the world,

They're just trying to be happy and trying to avoid suffering.

And at times it appears when we look at the news that there's a lot of individuals out there,

If indeed that is true,

Have extremely confusing ways of fulfilling those deep needs.

What kind of suffering they're running away from,

What type of ideologies promise them happiness if they do non-virtue,

It's just sometimes unbelievable that that truth is still existing within the minds of even those who cause incredible harm.

And so instead of pushing them away and hating them,

We can certainly have great misgivings and call to action their behaviors,

But behind those behaviors is a sentient being who is struggling to try to find a way to have happiness in their minds and to try to avoid whatever suffering,

Physical,

Mental,

Emotional suffering that they have.

And so may we be able to somehow call up that one truth that connects us,

Irregardless of how it plays itself out,

And to offer some sort of compassion,

Some sort of open-heartedness to the tragedy in which they are creating for themselves and for others in this deluded way of trying to find happiness and avoid whatever suffering.

So may we open up our hearts to the sufferings of the world.

May we also open our hearts to the courage,

The love,

The forgiveness,

The fearlessness,

The wisdom that also each and every one of us has the capacity to elicit as well in our search to be happy and not suffer.

And so may we,

Despite the difficulties,

May we always feel connected to the human family,

May we always feel connected to the living being family in our world,

And may we be of the greatest benefit to them in our own way,

Whatever our capacities.

May we be of help and be able to fulfill our deepest aspirations to be of benefit to all beings.

That's all the time we have for today.

So I have to say that when I signed up for this talk today,

I wasn't quite sure what I was going to say about relaxation.

Being a monastic in a training monastery in the West,

I've had to redefine what that is.

Being a lay person anymore,

Some of the things that I use to relax and have rest and enjoy myself,

I've had to sort of let go of.

So today I wanted to explore and give you some ideas on what I've used to,

When I do relax and we do find a time to rest,

Is how to do it with a virtuous Dharma motivation so that we actually,

In the process of relaxation and resting,

We help to create the causes and conditions for us to have peace and contentment and ease now and in the future,

Whether the short-term future or the long-term future.

So first of all,

Relaxation,

It usually involves some sort of external activity,

You know,

Something that we can sort of take a break from our work lives,

Our study lives,

Our family lives,

To be able to step back,

To give our minds a break if we use our minds a lot at work for our livelihood or if you have a career or livelihood that requires a lot of physical activity,

Sometimes relaxation gives our bodies a pause to be able to sort of rest and recharge the batteries of both our bodies and minds.

To take the time for things that we enjoy and to give us a reprieve from sometimes these pressures that seem to be coming up in our lives to kind of hold our lives in balance,

To hold our lives together,

That there's,

I think relaxation comes as sort of a medicine to be able to take care of them.

And how relaxation looks and how much we need it,

I think,

At least my experience is determined pretty much about do you enjoy what you do for your livelihood?

You know,

Does it sustain you?

Does it nourish you?

Does it feed you?

Does it really grow your good qualities?

Where you live,

I think,

Has a lot to do with whether you need to sort of take a vacation from where you live because whatever the environment is.

I think sometimes the need for relaxation and rest is,

You know,

How our relationships are going sometimes determines that.

If you're taking care of elderly parents or you're having difficulties,

Maybe your children or your friends are going through hard times,

Sometimes there's causes and conditions in our lives that we really want to sort of pull back and step back and give our minds and bodies a break so we can then re-engage our lives more clearly and more wisely.

Now,

Curiously,

When I met the Dharma,

Which was quite some time ago,

I was pretty much a layperson enjoying relaxing in her life and having all sorts of,

I mean,

Incredible amounts of opportunities to relax,

Lots of hobbies,

Special interests that were really helping me to be in my life.

But when I met the Dharma and I started having somewhat a daily practice and going to teachings and doing retreats,

Like sometimes once or twice a year I would make sure that I went,

Which I loved,

I found that the more that I did this,

The less sort of need to have to relax or take a vacation from my life.

It was almost like the Dharma was nourishing me in a very,

Very specific way.

Not that,

You know,

Gardening and I used to love to take road trips,

I used to love to go backpacking and beachcombing and things like that.

And they were a great sense of enjoyment for me and they gave me a sense of relaxation and recharge,

But there's something about the Dharma that nourished me in a way that I can't quite explain on how the worldly activities of how I relaxed didn't quite do.

And I found that I was feeling better because the inside of me was feeling better.

The Dharma is a lot about taking care of oneself,

Taking care of one's mind,

Taking care of one's spiritual home,

You know,

Inside.

So there is a core teaching that we have here at the Abbey that I find is extremely helpful for me to keep my mind relaxed,

Keep my mind at ease,

Keep my mind open,

Rested in some way,

And I wanted to share that with you.

So each day at the Abbey,

One of our fundamental practices is,

Even before we get up out of bed,

All right,

The alarm goes off,

The birds are singing,

Whatever wakes you up,

Here,

It's usually the birds in the summer,

Is that we set three virtuous motivations on how we want our day to go and how we want to engage our lives.

First,

As much as I can,

May I harm the living being with my body,

Speech,

And mind.

As much as I can,

May I be of help,

May I be of service,

May I have some kindness toward others with my body,

Speech,

And mind as best as I can.

And then the third one is,

Lastly,

May my body,

Speech,

And mind be informed by a very vast motivation for me to aspire to fully realize my potential as a living being so that I can become awakened sometime in the future and be of the greatest benefit because I'll have all the skill,

I'll have all the wisdom.

So whatever I do today,

May it be able to be informed by this vast aspiration.

So if we take time to do these three things,

Even before we make our coffee,

Even before we check our phone,

Even before we check the news or whatever,

If we do this before we get ready for work or school or taking the kids to school or going shopping or whatever you do the first thing in the morning,

It sets the tone and the attention for the day in our minds.

And I have found over the years,

Because we do this every day,

Is that it really gives my mind some clarity because first thing in the morning my mind tends to be a little bit clearer than it is by the time I get to five o'clock in the afternoon.

It's got some clarity to it and that these intentions bring a clarity and a focus.

And so I'm a little bit more at ease because I've got a little bit of an idea of how I want to be in the world.

And so a little bit of whatever anxiety I might have or trepidation or worry that I might be waking up with is pretty quickly dispensed of if I can remember to do these.

So as we go through the day,

As we connect with these three intentions,

There might be situations where somebody really triggers you by something that they've said about you,

But because you've got in your mind way back there,

May I refrain from harming any living being with my body,

Speech,

And mind.

So right now,

Because I'm pretty triggered,

I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

I'm going to wait until I can calm down here.

I've heard what they said.

I don't like what they said,

But I'm not going to react by doing a whole bunch of verbal blah,

Which may cause more harm than good.

So right now,

Because I've got that intention back in my mind,

I cannot say a word,

Get myself reconnected to myself,

My motivation,

And then I can meet that and address that when I'm a little bit more calmed down.

And one of the things that keeps this connectedness to these three motivations,

And I'm going to say the word,

It's the biggest buzzword going on in the planet right now,

Is that if we can integrate mindfulness into our day,

Believe it or not,

It's a buzzword,

But when you put it in as a practice with these three intentions,

Then it takes on a whole new meaning besides just giving bare attention to an activity that you're doing.

The Tibetan word for mindfulness is to remember,

And it has to do with recalling,

Bringing back to mind how you want to be in the world.

And when mindfulness is used to bring these ethical intentions to mind,

Then it helps us to make some decisions in the course of our day.

Well,

What do I want to do here?

Since I don't want to harm and I want to help,

What choice can I make here to make sure that those intentions are really guiding me in my day today?

And then because we're so clear,

We've got those intentions,

Clarity does bring a sense of ease in the mind.

You know,

There's not a lot of confusion,

There's not a lot of self-doubt or skepticism,

That if we're clear about why we're going to do the things we're going to do in the course of our day,

It brings a sense of ease and a sense of relaxation.

I mean,

It's great to use mindfulness to improve your running ability,

You know,

If you're a marathon runner,

To improve your video playing skills or how to eat your dinner a little bit more mindfully.

Those are wonderful practices,

But when you put in with these virtuous intentions,

You end up really creating a lot of potential to have this kind of mind of clarity and ease in the future.

It's kind of a familiarity of remembering practice.

So as we change gears in the day from,

You know,

Sleep to breakfast to work to class to grocery shopping to,

You know,

Going to visit family to going out with friends,

If we take 30 seconds each time we make a shift in the course of our activities of the day just to check in with ourselves.

You know,

This mindfulness has a great friend,

It's called introspective awareness,

And what it does is it says,

Well,

Let me sit down here,

How am I doing?

How is my mind doing?

How is my heart doing?

And then we have this introspective awareness,

It helps us to check in.

What's the flavor of my mind right now?

What kind of mood am I in?

I mean,

When we check in,

You know,

How are we feeling?

How are we thinking?

A lot of times,

At least for me,

I get going on autopilot that I don't even know why I'm doing what I'm doing,

I don't know what I'm thinking,

I don't know how I'm feeling about what I'm doing.

But if we use this mindfulness with these three intentions holding them in our hearts,

30 seconds every time we shift gears,

It totally changes the day.

You know,

We don't start any fires,

You know,

Because we're watching our body,

Speech,

And mind.

We nourish our good qualities because we're really tracking what we want to do as far as to be of help and to be of benefit.

And sometimes it means taking some deep breaths and just saying,

All right,

Let me get myself back to center here.

And so this is a source of real ease,

Relaxation,

Rest,

If we can really use mindfulness and use these three intentions to sort of guide and protect our hearts and minds during the course of the day.

And one of the things that becomes really apparent is that if my mind is resistant or restless because I'm having to do something that I don't particularly want to do that I'm being asked to do or something that I don't like,

That if I end up fighting my way through the day with a lot of complaining and convexing and unhappy mind,

At the end of the day I'm just wiped out.

So I finally figure out that what my Dharma practice is showing me is that a lot of the ways in which I exhaust myself,

That we exhaust ourselves,

Is by these proliferating thoughts,

You know,

These ruminating scenarios,

This screenwriting,

This exaggerating,

This storytelling that we tell ourselves.

Something happens and immediately we interpret it and build these huge stories around them so that by the end of the day we've got all these dramas playing,

We can't sleep,

When if we had just caught those writings and ruminations before they got to be too big and said,

Okay,

Is this going to harm me or somebody?

Is this going to be helpful?

Is this going to really help me actualize my potential,

What I'm about to do or how I'm starting to feel,

And then using the mindfulness,

Using the breath,

Using our remembering of our good intentions.

We can put,

Keep a lot of those little fires down rather than putting a lot of fuel on things during the course of our day.

We train the mind by what we put into it,

Okay?

So we want it to be at ease and we want to be relaxed in our lives.

We want to cultivate love and kindness and tolerance and appreciation and a lot of self-empathy,

You know,

A lot of self-acceptance.

That's a huge virtuous activity to do for ourselves that brings a sense of okayness and anger,

Greed,

Jealousy,

Conceit.

They agitate our minds and they make us crazy.

I mean,

They really make us crazy because we're incessantly talking to ourselves about something,

Which many times isn't even true.

So by the end of the day,

We're just so worked up and we're so unhappy.

So these three motivations help us keep focused on the state of mind that brings peace,

Relaxation,

Ease.

So that when we do get to,

And it also helps,

The second one about helping others,

Gets us out of a preoccupation with,

You know,

All about me,

All about me,

Is that when we really turn our attention to how we can be of benefit,

The preoccupation is a really tight,

Narrow,

Concerning,

Worrying kind of mind.

We're benefiting others as kind of a curious,

Opened,

Unwilling kind of mind that has a little bit of an ease and a flexibility to it.

So that's what we really want to focus on is these intentions.

And then when the rest of the day happens,

Whether we're hanging out with friends or we're going on vacation,

Our mind has already got some familiarity on how to take care of itself,

How to find the center,

How to find some ease in our life,

Because we've got these three intentions strongly in our hearts as we go through the day.

The three ethical intentions create the environments in our minds for true relaxation.

And true relaxation from the Buddha's teachings is to be free from these afflictive,

Disturbing states that really not only wear us out and wear us down,

But they really close our hearts off to having a joyful,

Purposeful,

Meaningful life.

So making friends with our minds is a great way to learn how to relax them,

To be at ease in our own skin,

And to take the pressure off the world,

To be that the world has to be responsible for entertaining us,

You know,

To making us at ease,

That we can do that from the inside out.

And so these three motivations are a wonderful way to take care of ourselves,

To be friends with ourselves,

And so that our whole life becomes a day of some ease,

Some sense of purpose.

There's a relaxation in how things unfold,

You know,

Our agendas don't get so hard and fast,

What we like,

What we don't like.

We get to discern,

I'm going to put that down,

You know,

Right now I'm here to just take care of somebody here,

I'm just going to watch my body,

Speech,

And mind.

And we really learn that relaxation is more of an internal process,

An internal experience,

And then combine that with then our play and our enjoyment and our vacation.

It just all rolls into having a life experience that doesn't have my vacation where I get to relax and then there's the rest of my life where I'm stressed and worried and always shooting myself in the foot.

Then we get to put them together and we've got our whole life that's filled with a lot of joy and a lot of ease.

So anyway,

I've found that to be helpful because we do that every day here and after a while it gets to be something I depend on to keep my mind at ease.

Anyway,

Just some thoughts.

So I wanted to just do a little digestion meditation,

Maybe something came up of what I shared that was helpful.

So let's just sit back and do a quick body check,

Do a little mind check.

How's your mind right now?

What's coming up?

What kind of emotions?

What kind of thoughts?

What's coming up?

And thinking about the three intentions of,

Well,

What I'm thinking and feeling right now,

Is it a harmful way of thinking for myself and others?

Do I need to just kind of hold it in and chew on it for a little bit longer?

Is it a virtuous,

Maybe an inspired,

Maybe an appreciating kind of mind that might be helpful for me and others?

And how does how I'm feeling right now really help me to create and to really grow my potential as a human being,

Not just for today but for the rest of my life and for all future lives?

How do I take care of this mind I have right now with what's going on?

Hmm,

Okay.

Great.

And then maybe think of some ideas that you might have,

If you're interested,

On how to integrate these three intentions into your life before you get up in the morning or get out of bed.

Would it be helpful to say to yourself,

Today as best as I can,

May I refrain from harming any living being with my body,

Speech,

Or mind?

Today as best as I can,

May I be of help with my body,

Speech,

And mind as best as I'm able.

And whatever I do today,

May it kind of become part of the causes and conditions for me to realize my full potential as a living being so that I can be in a really good position to help with a lot of wisdom and compassion and skillful means.

So may my day be able to be part of the causes for that to occur.

Okay?

.

Reviews

such helpful and joyful start to my day, to carry with me through out my day. Thank you 🙏💗🌻

🦋 Thanks for that testimony and short meditation 🧘‍♂️

Great perspective and insight. Practical approach to living & thinking. Useful & peaceful 👍