Liberating The Mind

We have come to the twelfth step of the sixteen steps of Mindfulness of Breathing. The twelfth step is: Breathing in, one liberates the mind. Breathing out, one liberates the mind. It is the twelfth step, not the sixteenth step, so it's not the full or complete liberation that this Buddhist path is championing. But it’s a significant experience of freedom and letting go that makes an impression on the mind.

Transcript

So we are now on the 12th step of the 16 steps of the practice of mindful breathing. It's known in the Pali, The Pali words are the original words of the Buddhist teaching as the Anapanasati, The practices of mindfully breathing in and mindfully breathing out. And the 12th step is breathing in, One liberates the mind and breathing out, One liberates the mind. So it's the 12th step, Not the 16th step. So it's not the full and complete liberation that this Buddhist path is championing. But it's a significant experience of freedom and letting go that makes an impression on the mind. You know, Breathing in one liberates the mind. It makes an impression on us. Okay, I'm willing to be liberated. So this is the direction of the path, The path that we're on together. And it's as if a door is opened, And now we know something we didn't know before, If we're kind of following this in a linear way. So remember that this is the 12th step. This means that the first 11 steps are in a sense preparing for this next step. It's like we've only, You know, Like, Let's say we've only heard the instruction for this Buddhist path is okay, Letting go, Let go, Let go. Like, I don't know if that would be really useful for people. It might not, You know, Provide the right idea of what letting go is about. It might feel like, Okay, If I just let go of everything, Then now I have nothing as a result. And that might occur as being impoverished in some way. So if I let go, There'll be nothing left. And then I'll just be depressed and kind of miserable. So letting go happens after the first 11 steps. Those first 11, They prepare the ground and set up the well being. So that now letting go has a wonderful context. You know, We understand the value of letting go because of all the wholesome benefits and states that we've been experiencing and cultivating. Breathing in, I calm the mind. Breathing out, I calm the mind. So just to review how the context for letting go is set up for those of you that haven't been kind of following in these 16 steps with us. The practice begins with simply mindfully breathing in and out. And this helps the mind calm down and get focused. And it also helps us to show up and be present for experience. I think that's where the bulk of the practice is for most people, Even people who have been practicing a long time. You know, These first couple of steps, Steps one and two, Just sitting down, Just watching the breath and calming the breath and calming the body. That's where we're at a lot of the time. The idea that there is a progression that you're always supposed to be at the growing edge of these 16 steps. I feel like it's an unnecessary step or a source of stress and misunderstanding. You know, The idea of mindfulness practice is to really become or just be more ourselves, To be honest about what's here and to learn how to rest in and be present, Present for it. So the idea of just breathing in and out through all of it is a way of us not resisting or trying to escape or avoid what's here, But to really be present and to face, Well, This is what's here. Just breathe in and relax. And as we do this practice, At some point, We begin to feel or as Sharon has been teaching, We begin to recognize that we can relax the body. And sometimes the body relaxes itself in meditation. We don't have to do the relaxing. The body becomes more tranquil and more calm. And that feels like a good thing. The more we practice, The more calm and relaxed the body becomes. And as the body becomes calmer and more relaxed, Then we can let go of some of the tension. And when we do that, Then, Then feelings of well being start to rise up in our experience. A relaxed and even maybe joyful experience in the body. Happiness. So what this practice of mindfulness of breathing kind of brings forward, Is it sort of inches along, It inches along. So we start with just breathing in breathing out. And then maybe we feel some joy and some happiness. And that sets up the stage. For, I guess, Appreciating more the tensions of the mind, The mental activity. We start to see that comes to the forefront, The stresses we have. And the instruction is when we start to see this, The stresses, The tension, The mental activity, We start to relax the mental activity, Calm the agitation of the mind, Relax the mind, The mental muscle, The thinking. And then the mental activity, It starts to come into harmony with itself. Some unity starts to happen in the body and the mind. There's a settling. And that's the third tetrad, The third step in all of this. You know, The third tetrad or the third grouping and has to do with the mind. And the mind is sometimes called chitta, Chitta in the Pali. And it can be understood as the heart mind. It's the inner life. Kind of as we progress on this path, We start to recognize that, Well, We have an inner life. You know, We have an inner mind and inner quality, A mood, A state of mind that we may be habituated towards. And then we start to be a caretaker of that inner life. That's a shift. You know, Care take our inner life. Because of the earlier steps of mindfulness of breathing, It begins to feel really good to connect to this deeper inner life. There can be a sense of satisfaction and contentment for caring for it, For connecting with it. You know, The mind is no longer scattered so much as we settle. You know, It's not spinning around on the surface of our thoughts and ideas. We really start to become more unified in practice, More whole. And this process of becoming unified, We talked about last week, This is the 11th step of this mindfulness of breathing in and out. And that's samadhi. Samadhi means unification, A steadiness. And when we're, When we're in a state of concentration in this way, A state of unification, There's a lot of well-being. So by the time that we get to this 12th step, Letting go, Liberating the mind, There's a tremendous amount of well-being and that being really feels like home and connected. So rather than letting go being an impoverished state or diminished state, We start to see that what we're letting go of is in fact what diminishes and makes us impoverished causes the sense of poverty. There's something about the movement of the mind where it gets caught, You know, And gets preoccupied and starts spinning around and thoughts and that is holding on. And sometimes it's fear, Sometimes it's to a sense of self, A self-image. You know, We cling to our hurts and we cling to our grief. There are all kinds of things that we cling to and that clinging is a separation from well-being. So when we get to this place where we're unified, Letting go feels more like, Of course, I can let go. What I'm letting go of is clearly so obviously a source of suffering and stress. Of course I'll let it go. And then 10 seconds later you might pick it up again, Right? Sometimes letting go, The liberation that happens is so innate, It just happens. It's not something that we have to do. We just keep staying present, Breathing with the experience, Letting the things be. And sometimes letting go by itself, You know, Just happens by itself without the mental involvement, Without the needing to hold on. And we might go back and we might hold on and then we let go. It can be more like a movement, The letting go and then the holding on. But as we're more collected and unified, It becomes much more of a natural self-liberating capacity that evolves and develops. So now we're at this last, Well not this last step, The 12th step. We still have many more to go and we'll talk about that next week. But as I think about letting go, In my own practice for many, Many years, When I would sit down to practice in the morning, All I did was let go. I would just repeat, Let go, Let go, Let go, Whatever arise. Let go, Let go, Let be. Don't get involved, Don't pick it up, Don't get reactive, Don't get pulled away. Let go, Let go, Let go. We can let go of kind of being the agent of this change that will naturally occur. Let go of having an agenda. Let go of trying to be enlightened or complete. Just let go. Let go as if that's all there is to do. So this letting go is kind of the entry point for the last four steps of this practice that we're doing on the Anapanasati. Letting go and liberation are not the end of the story. Like in some ways, I guess in some ways it's kind of like the beginning of the story. Sometimes it's said that the Buddhist path really begins when we have an experience of letting go. Some of you know that I came to practice 25 years ago after really seeing like, You know what, I have to let go of this life that I'm living, This life of alcohol consumption. I saw, You know, I'm an alcoholic, I can't do this. I have to let go of the life that I'm living. And the experience of coming to practice, That was the doorway for my sobriety. And it was filled with so much potential for compassion and freedom of no longer causing harm to myself or causing harm in the world. It was like, Okay, This is a good thing. And this letting go, This letting go of a lifestyle, Of a habit, Of an addiction. It was the beginning. So that's kind of where we are in the process. Thank you for so many of you that have been hanging in there. We started this in January. So here it is April. And so maybe, Maybe as a practice over the weekend, You know, Talk to some friends about what they've learned about how to let go, How they've let go, Or share about how you've let go. Letting go is, You know, How has it been useful in your life? And maybe we can have a little bit of dialogue now. What are the benefits of letting go? And how have you let go in a wise way? You know, Look for some opportunities to let go. Just start to explore it a little bit deeper. So thank you.