So we've been focusing on a guiding principle in our practice.
The aspiration,
The intention,
This principle is to pay attention.
Pay attention.
So what we pay attention to and are getting to know is all the ways the mind gets disrupted,
Gets distracted,
Gets lost.
And in the case of our meditation practice,
What pulls the mind off of the breath,
Off of the body,
What story distracts us from the rawness of just feeling our emotions,
Learning to see thought without adding more to it.
All the ways,
So many ways.
And to be light with it,
Curious with it.
Oh,
Look at that.
That's what a disruption of the mind looks like.
That's what it's like for the mind to get hooked and carried away.
That's what it's like.
That's what it's like.
And Tuesday,
We talked about the usefulness of the breath.
The breath is calming for most people.
It's continuous.
It's going in and out.
It's a wonderful place to train yourself to be in the present moment.
It's one of the tools for staying in the present moment.
We all know that the mind has a mind of its own and it will take us away.
So turning to the breath is a way of re-entering here and now.
You can try it immediately,
Just in this moment.
What we're trying to do is train the mind to stay in the present moment.
Because from the Buddhist point of view,
All the wisdom,
All the insight,
All the enlightenment that you need to have in your life will be found and only found when you're able to stay present.
If you're not in the present,
You're not going to find it.
It's not going to be there.
So the breath is a place to train yourself to calm yourself down enough to settle the mind to concentrate the mind enough so that the mind can stay in the present moment.
So breath meditation has a lot of functions.
It's very beneficial and it's very foundational to our practice.
Yet when we sit down to meditate and try to follow a series of breaths,
Kind of in a row,
Well you quickly realize that my mind is out of control.
And here's the deal.
Maybe you didn't realize that.
You didn't see that.
And now you see,
Oh wow,
My mind is so out of control.
And so now you see this and so the meditation is successful.
Not at following the breath,
Which is not necessarily the point.
The point is to see yourself more clearly.
Look at that.
Look at that.
My mind is out of control.
Seeing that is beneficial.
It's successful that way.
In this tradition,
As I've said before,
It is better to know than to not know.
One of the many gifts that the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh brought to us over his life was the practice of using what are known as gathas.
And gathas are Sanskrit.
It's a Sanskrit term for song or verse.
And Thich Nhat Hanh popularized reciting these gathas with the rhythm of the breath.
And a gatha is,
You know,
Kind of like a meditation poem that we can use to help us focus the mind during meditation.
Many people find that their mind wanders so much that they have a hard time keeping their attention in the present even for just one breath or even for one moment.
So a gatha provides a strong anchor for the wandering mind.
So let's let's try this together.
This is a gatha used in the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh.
So you can even close your eyes.
Connecting with your body.
Connecting with your breath.
Again,
Taking that maybe that three breath journey.
I know I'm breathing in.
In.
I know I'm breathing out.
I calm my body and my mind.
Calming.
I smile.
Smiling.
I dwell in the present moment.
Present moment.
I know this is a precious moment.
Precious moment.
In.
Out.
Calming.
Smiling.
Present moment.
Precious moment.
How I understand this is that the beginning of this practice,
As you begin tuning into your breathing and you're you're asked to simply start noticing what your breath is like,
You're not asked to change it or to judge it or to have a better breath.
The instruction is simply to pay attention to how you're breathing.
What it's like.
Just to get to know it.
Breathing in.
In.
I know I'm breathing in.
I know I'm breathing out.
Out.
The instruction is simply to pay attention.
And then to calm the body and mind.
You know,
As we relax our,
Our attention,
The mind begins to relax.
And it's a lot easier to stay in the present moment to stay focused on the breath when we're relaxed.
If we're really tense,
Or really fidgety,
The mind jumps around and it's hard to focus.
So relaxing and calming the body.
This journey of breath that we're doing could be seen as a way of progressively relaxing and calming.
At first that that's what it is for many people.
And at some point,
As we're able to collect around the breath,
It tends to create a sense of well being.
You know,
A good feeling.
It's nice to be settled to be here and connected to your body in this very relaxed way.
And that sense of well being can be mild,
And it can be quite strong.
But this dwelling in the present moment,
Calmly knowing and tasting that well being the experiences,
How,
How unique how precious this is,
How valuable this moment is.
As we settle back into the breath in the body,
The joy,
The sense of well being supports the mind to get even more concentrated in the present moment.
And it feels good to be here.
It's at some point,
It's better to be here than to be thinking about your taxes or whatever.
No,
Why would you not want to stay here where it feels good.
So that's kind of my pithy interpretation of this of this gatha.
And just to remember that the main point of practice is to see yourself clearly.
If you're able to stay with the breath,
The breath can be very calming,
Very supportive.
And if it's tricky,
If the mind is quite busy,
Then practice that three breath journey.
You know,
Just keep coming back to that,
Or exhale a little bit longer.
And that can have a calming effect.
And as we get calmer,
We start seeing the deeper layers of what makes us run.
We see those common patterns,
The beliefs and perceptions that are sort of hidden.
Because we've been living from the surface mind,
The mind of planning and and remembering and evaluating and problem solving.
I think it's also important to remember that we can't fail in this practice.
You know,
We're doing the best we can.
And we learn from how we're not doing it.
Like,
Wow,
Look at that.
I can't stay with the breath,
Because I am so busy planning my future.
Look at that.
Always living in the future.
Wow.
And once we see this,
We can be simple with it.
There's no need to judge it or to criticize it.
It's just seeing.
So I'll stop here today and take some questions that may be bubbling up for you or any other observations in your practice.
Thank you for your kind attention and your consideration.
