The 5th Factor Of Awakening: Tranquility

As we deepen our meditation practice, it's crucial for us to learn to develop the powerful quality of Passaddhi, also translated as “calm,” “tranquility,” “serenity,” or “composure.” This soothing, cooling quality of mind and heart can help to keep us peaceful and at ease, especially during times of difficulty. In this talk, Shell explores this essential step along our path, and how we can better develop it.

Please note: This track was recorded live and may contain background noises.

Transcript

I wanted to start tonight's talk by sharing one of my favorite stories about the Buddha's life which has so many rich teachings in it.

The story is actually a memory the Buddha had of his childhood which many believe was a key moment,

This memory that ultimately led him to his enlightenment and to the understanding of the middle way itself.

So pretty important story.

As most of you know the Buddha was born a prince,

Prince Siddhartha and he was showered with luxury and he was mostly sheltered.

When he was 29 he made the radical decision to leave his home and everything he loved including his newborn child and his wife to go out into the forest as a homeless ascetic in search of enlightenment.

And for six years Siddhartha dove very intensely into the search and studied with many different teachers and near the end of those six years he believed very strongly as did many of the spiritual seekers of his day that punishing and depriving his body is what would eventually lead him to enlightenment.

This was the belief.

He was such a devoted student in fact that he nearly killed himself with this practice.

In the suttas he explains how emaciated and painful his body had become this way.

So my limbs became like the jointed segments of vine stems or bamboo stems.

My ribs jutted out as gaunt as the crazy rafters of an old roofless barn.

The gleam of my eyes sunk far down in their sockets looked like the gleam of water sunk far down in a deep well.

If I made water or evacuated my bowels I fell over on my face.

If I tried to ease my body by rubbing my limbs with my hand the hair rotted at its roots fell away from my body as I rubbed because of eating so little.

That's a pretty incredible description.

So as he was lying under a tree in the state of great pain and suffering as you might imagine this young woman from a nearby village passed by him and could clearly see that he was dying.

So she offered him some milk rice and finally the Buddha,

The Siddhartha at that point agreed to eat.

And so this young woman Sujata essentially she saved his life and then for several months afterwards she continued to gradually nurse him back to health.

So during that time as Siddhartha was recovering,

You know meditating under a tree at the river's edge a very vivid memory from his childhood came to him and this is the story.

In this memory he was eight years old and he and his family were all attending this big annual ceremony in town where everyone had gathered to celebrate the first plowing of the fields.

And he remembered that people were all dressed up in their best clothes and that the trees were all decorated with colorful flags and other things.

The tables and altars were also filled with food and drinks and there were a lot of holy men leading prayers and chants asking of course for vibrant healthy crops.

So as you might imagine it was a very festive day but after a while many of the children started getting really antsy with listening to all these more adult affairs on the praying and chanting and such.

And so they started venturing out into the fields and Siddhartha did this as well he ventured out with them.

And because he was a very curious child he ended up walking as close to the fields as he could so he could watch the men who were plowing the fields with the buffalo at that time.

So as he was watching the man who was the closest to him in the fields Siddhartha noticed how tired he was and how hot he looked.

The man's back was bare and the sun was shining off of his sweat.

Siddhartha remembers that and the buffalo he noticed looked tired as well.

You know it was really hot and he was laboring to pull this heavy plow through the earth all the while being whipped frequently by the man.

In the soil that was being dug up Siddhartha noticed hundreds of worms and with a kind of horror he noticed that they were all wriggling in distress to get away and they were writhing in pain as they were chopped in half by the blades.

Then there was a small flock of birds who were eating the helpless defenseless worms and then there was a hawk who flew down and scooped up one of the small birds and its talons.

This is what he's remembering seeing.

And in that moment seeing all of this Siddhartha at age eight suddenly became overwhelmed and he felt all of this fear right this pain and struggle.

The man,

The buffalo,

The worms,

The birds.

He was really upset and shaking and sweating and the afternoon sun was blaring and so he made his way over to the nearest tree a rose apple tree.

He wanted to get away from all the commotion and the noise of all the children and right away as he stepped underneath this tree he felt a sense of relief in the cool shade of this tree and he also discovered that there was this large slab of rock under the tree where he could also sit and feel the coolness of the earth.

And as he sat down apparently he instinctively just curled his little legs up beneath him and closed his eyes and then he rested his hands in his lap and then he just sat that way breathing and reflecting on what he had just seen.

And as he continued this way he gradually felt himself becoming saturated by this great feeling of compassion for all the beings that he'd seen and this compassion included himself for what he had witnessed.

And apparently he sat like this for hours and hours in what is often referred to as the first meditation.

And so during this time as Siddhartha breathed and focused on his compassion and his innate connection to all of these beings what he noticed was that his mind had gotten very very still.

In fact his thoughts had quieted down so much that he experienced a deep tranquility and calm that allowed him suddenly to see things much more clearly and to have profound realizations about his life.

Of course I won't go into all these realizations that he had because we'd be here all evening but as the story goes at the very end of the day when his family finally found him still sitting this little eight-year-old they noticed that while all the other shadows had shifted with the sun as they should that the shadow under that rose apple tree had never moved.

They thought it was a miracle.

This is the story anyway.

Throughout the day it had just continued to shield this young prince in its shade.

So the older Siddhartha as he was recovering from this almost near death and had this memory of his childhood what he realized in that moment was that in order for us to discover freedom on our path we not only need joy but the qualities of tranquility and calm and that striving and punishment are not the way to freedom.

Striving and punishment are not the way to freedom.

We do not need to beat up on ourselves or push ourselves in order to find freedom which is often the opposite of what we think right if we're really honest.

Instead what we need to do is to soften.

We need to soften and what we're softening is the mind and the body and heart and this was and still is actually considered radical because again if we think about it it's really the opposite of what we think we need to do in order to find freedom.

There's this great short poem from the poet Nariah Waheed that I've been thinking about a lot lately that reminds me of this teaching which is you do not have to be a fire for every mountain blocking you.

You could be a water and soft river your way to freedom too.

I just love that.

I just like to think of all the great spiritual leaders and how they all exemplify this quality of calm don't they in order to create great change in our world.

The great monk Piyadasi Maha Tara said this about the importance of cultivating the quality of calm.

The Tathagata is the Buddha.

The Tathagata the tamed teaches the Dharma for the purpose of taming the human heart.

A disorderly mind is a liability both to the owner of it and for others.

All the havoc wrought in the world is wrought by men who have not learned the way of mental calm balance and poise.

Calmness is not weakness.

The calm attitude at all times shows a man of culture.

It is not too hard a task for a man to be calm when all things around him are favorable.

But to be composed in mind in the midst of unfavorable circumstances is hard indeed and is this difficult quality that is worth achieving.

For by such control one builds up strength of character.

The most deceptive thing in the world is to imagine that they alone are strong who are noisy or that they alone possess power who are fussily busy.

The man who cultivates calm of mind does not get upset confused or excited when confronted with the eight vicissitudes of the world.

He endeavors to see the rise and fall of all things conditioned how things come into being and pass away.

Free from anxiety and restlessness he will see the fragility of the fragile.

He will see the fragility of the fragile.

It's a lot packed into that.

It's a really good teaching.

So tonight I want to talk about this quality of calm or tranquility which in Pali is called Pasati and it's also been translated as serenity or composure.

And because the Buddha's childhood memory involves his sitting on that cool rock under the shade of the rose apple tree,

Pasati is often described as the cooling factor,

Something that calms the heat or the fire of the mind and the body.

And if you think about it,

You know,

Whenever we're caught up in a story of some sort or struggling in some way,

Doesn't it feel like the mind and the body are hot?

Doesn't it feel that way?

Right?

Like there's a kind of fire in the mind or a fire in the body,

Like we're burning up with it sometimes.

Pasati is what helps us to chill out,

You know,

To think of our languaging,

Keep our cool,

Cool down.

The teacher Joseph Goldstein describes Pasati this way.

It's what a tired worker feels upon sitting down in the cool shade of a tree on a sweltering day or what a child feels when her mother lays a cool soothing hand on her feverish forehead.

I like that one best.

In some versions of that story about the rose apple tree,

The tree itself is believed to be a goddess in disguise who offers the Buddha the compassionate shelter of her arms and that same kind of soothing care,

Like that of a mother not allowing the heat of the sun to burn him.

I also like that image.

Traditionally,

Kwan Yin,

The Bodhisattva of Compassion,

I don't have my statue with me tonight,

But I have it on retreat.

If you look at it,

You'll see that the Bodhisattva of Compassion is holding a vase that represents the cooling water of Pasati.

And whenever I see that vase,

I like to think of that young Buddha under the shade of the rose apple tree getting that coolness.

So I hope these are some good images for you to take with you and remember.

As many of you might recall,

Pasati is the fifth of the seven factors of awakening that we've been exploring these past few months.

These qualities that are also called the Satavojangas or the seven friends or the seven treasures.

These seven profound qualities of mind and heart are so important,

Actually,

That they are said to lead us to awakening itself if we cultivate these seven.

So we're on the fifth of those tonight.

So we've already explored the first four.

And if you're interested,

They're up on the site if you want to review or listen.

These are mindfulness,

Sati,

We start with mindfulness,

Investigation,

Vikaya,

Energy,

Virya,

And then joy or rapture,

Pithi,

Which I talked about last week.

And joy,

Pithi,

If you recall,

Is the bridge between the more energizing factors,

The first three mindfulness,

Investigation and energy,

And the last three,

Which are tranquility,

Which we're on tonight,

Concentration and equanimity,

Opekka.

Those are considered the calming factors.

So tonight we're on the first of the more calming factors,

Tranquility,

Sounds great,

Doesn't it?

Who wants tranquility?

Anybody?

Yeah.

So there's actually innumerable ways that we can cultivate this common tranquility for our practice.

But as you might imagine,

It honestly involves the entire canon of the teachings.

So I won't go into that tonight.

For our purposes,

I want to offer three main qualities that can help us to develop or cultivate passadi.

Traditionally,

These are the qualities of calmness,

Spaciousness,

And groundedness.

Okay?

Calmness,

Spaciousness,

And groundedness.

And before I continue,

I just want to remind us that we do this for both the body and the mind,

Which are of course not disconnected.

They go together.

So we calm both mind and body.

So to begin,

We start by cultivating very consciously a sense of calm.

And here we might return to the Buddha's memory of sitting under that rose apple tree.

And remember that he did four things.

Okay?

First,

He went somewhere quiet,

Didn't he,

Away from all the hustle and bustle so that he could cool the fire of his mind and body and not add any more flames to it.

Next,

He very instinctively established a good,

Comfortable,

Upright posture.

He curled his little legs beneath him.

He sat up straight.

He gently placed his hands together.

And he did this because it was the most comfortable way for him to sit and a posture that he could likely hold for a longer period of time.

Then he helped to slow and cool the mind even more by focusing on what?

On his breath.

And finally,

He focused on his heart,

On his own fear and suffering and also his compassion for both himself and others.

And on his connection to all things,

Which meant that he was focusing on inclining the mind towards good,

Towards the wholesome.

Okay?

So in the famous Sadabatana Sutta,

Which is mainly the Buddha's main instructions for how we should practice those four foundations of mindfulness,

He gives us some instructions for how to begin,

Which you might notice sounds really similar to that first meditation when he was eight.

And here I'm going to read you the translation of the Sutta from the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh,

Which I prefer because it makes the pronoun feminine.

Thank you Thich Nhat Hanh.

So the instructions are as follows.

She goes to the forest,

To the foot of a tree or to an empty room,

Sits down cross-legged in the Lotus position,

Holds your body straight and establishes mindfulness in front of her.

And here when the Buddha says in front,

He's not saying to be mindful of something that's literally in front of us.

He's asking us to stay here in the present moment right now by paying attention to what's right here in front of us,

Not in the past,

Not in the future,

But right here,

Moment by moment being mindful.

That's what he means by in front.

And again,

He's urging us to find a quiet place to do this and to find a comfortable,

Sustainable,

Sustainable posture.

And here you might even imagine a little eight-year-old child and how they might really relax into this,

Like they're being held in the arms of their mother.

So you might consider how might a child's face look when it's being held like this?

Very often there's a very slight contented smile,

Isn't there?

Like a little bit at the lips and the eyes.

And when we're practicing,

We're being asked to do the same thing,

Actually,

To place a slight smile at the corner of the eyes and lips.

And when we do this,

We're inviting not only a sense of calm,

But a sense of friendliness,

Metta,

Which is considered the ground of our practice.

And again,

Never ever as a way of covering anything over,

But bringing a kind of allowing of whatever's happening here in the heart.

And I find it so fascinating to know that the Buddha suggested this practice thousands of years ago.

And today we know from modern science that bringing a slight smile to the face really does calm the mind and body.

It brings on the flow of those good neurotransmitters,

Which can not only relax the body,

But lower the heart rate and the blood pressure.

So I might even try that on now.

I do this when I'm stressed.

I just put a little smile on my face,

Not covering it over at all.

I just try it on because I know it's going to bring those feel good transmitters to me.

And to bring back that sense of being held,

You might also imagine that the body of that child is allowing itself to feel held.

And we can do the same thing with our practice.

Now of course this doesn't mean we simply collapse in some way or just let everything go and collapse into a puddle.

We want to find a good balance between effort and relaxation,

A balance.

But we can consciously allow ourselves to feel held by our great common mother,

Mother Earth,

Which is vast enough to hold us.

And so we don't have to do all the holding ourselves.

We can relax into this practice and really feel held and connected.

So for instance,

How do we do this?

So we might consciously let go by dropping our shoulders,

Right?

And we hold our shoulders up because we got to hold up the world,

Right?

Or we're tensing against something.

So we relax the shoulders.

We unclench the jaw.

We let our palms be soft.

We relax the eyes and the forehead.

We relax the tummy.

Think again of that little eight-year-old child being held.

And maybe most importantly,

We might just let ourselves be.

That'd be nice.

Just let ourselves be relaxed and open and curious,

Just like children are so good at doing and we adults not so much.

After we've established a good,

Comfortable posture,

The instructions in the Sadha Patana Sutta continue.

And here again,

I'll read from Thich Nhat Hanh's version.

She breathes in,

Aware that she's breathing in.

She breathes out,

Aware that she's breathing out.

When she breathes in long,

She knows,

I am breathing in a long breath.

When she breathes out a long breath,

She knows,

I am breathing out a long breath.

When she breathes in a short breath,

She knows,

I am breathing in a short breath.

When she breathes out a short breath,

She knows,

I am breathing out a short breath.

She uses the following practice.

Breathing in,

I am aware of my whole body.

Breathing out,

I am aware of my whole body.

Breathing in,

I calm my body.

Breathing out,

I calm my body.

That sounds really simple,

Doesn't it?

But how often can we sustain our attention on just one breath and know that it's long or short?

Just consider that next time you practice.

And just as the Buddha at age eight began by focusing on the breath to help calm him down,

We are being asked to do the same thing with rapt,

Relaxed,

Curious attention.

And here you might recall the refrain from the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta,

Which asks us to do this diligently,

Clearly knowing and mindful,

Free from desires and discontents in regard to the world.

So this type of rapt,

Curious attention to our breathing can help to cool the mind by helping us to let go of all those thoughts that are keeping us from being present.

So we let go of all those desires and discontents or all those thoughts that are adding fuel to the fire of our stories,

To all our negative emotions,

All our fear and worry and planning and doubt.

We don't want to add fuel to that fire.

And then the breath,

You might think of it as like that mother's cool hand settling on our feverish forehead.

We soften our tight clenched thinking mind and simply feel that kind touch which comes in the form of the calmness and the sweetness of our own breathing.

It might also be really helpful to remember that this practice of being mindful of our breath is something that we continue to use our entire lives.

So it's not something we need to move on from or graduate from into something more complicated or complex.

That's a misunderstanding.

In fact,

20 years after the Buddha became enlightened,

His personal attendant Ananda asked him,

Venerable Sir,

If people ask me whether you were still practicing meditation,

What should I tell them?

The Buddha said,

Yes,

I'm still meditating.

Oh,

He said,

Venerable Sir,

What kind of meditation do you practice?

And the Buddha said,

Mindfulness of breathing.

This is after he became enlightened,

20 years after.

So as we continue to calm the body and the mind,

We can then focus on a sense of spaciousness.

And again,

We do this with both mind and body.

So for instance,

In the mind as we practice,

We might start letting go of our limited sense of self and get in touch with our innate connection to all beings and all things,

Just like the Buddha did during that first meditation.

And the more we can do this,

The more we can learn to stop taking everything in our lives so personally and to begin to sense ourselves as part of the larger whole.

And instead of this being scary,

It actually ends up bringing us much more calm and ease and freedom,

Mainly because we aren't so defensive.

We aren't so defensive,

Which makes our shoulders tight.

So here you might recall again,

Little Siddhartha's sense of connection to all those beings who were out in the field that day that he was watching and his realization that what connects us,

What connects all living creatures is our wish to be happy and our wish to avoid suffering.

Isn't that true?

Everything.

You might also remember the truth that our deepest source of suffering and wounding is our sense of feeling separate and alone,

Disconnected from the whole.

So this sense of a separate self is,

Of course,

What also creates the most harm in this world,

Doesn't it?

When we spend so much of our lives almost desperately trying to either prop up or define our sense of self or to defend it.

And I'm sure we can see how this sense of self affects not only ourselves personally,

But how it plays out in the larger world.

How much suffering it causes.

When we are constantly trying to defend,

Is this relaxing?

I really want you to consider that this week.

Is defending your sense of self relaxing?

What about when you're constantly comparing or trying to prop up?

Is that relaxing?

That feel good?

So why do we do it?

Good question.

So the teachings are asking us to really consider this,

To take a good honest look into the nature of our own minds and how we create suffering for ourselves in this way through the constant creation and constant defense of a self.

And as we begin to see this more and more,

We are then asked to courageously use our practice to help us to let go of this sense of self.

And of course,

One of the most powerful ways that we can do this to let go is by consciously cultivating and nurturing what are considered the wholesome qualities,

Just as the Buddha did again at age eight when he was under the rose apple tree.

He inclined the mind towards kindness,

Compassion,

Joy,

Equanimity,

Which you might recognize as the divine abodes,

The Brahma Vahara's,

As a way to help him feel more connected and therefore not so frightened,

Not so defensive,

And therefore much more calm.

As Piyasadi Maha Tara said,

We are practicing the Dharma for the purpose of taming the human heart.

And again,

This is something we're being asked to be consistently mindful about,

To investigate the qualities of kindness and compassion and joy and equanimity and really notice how they make us feel as opposed to the more unwholesome qualities of wanting or not wanting.

And the unwholesome,

By the way,

Have everything to do with self and the wholesome have to do with being connected,

Right?

So think about how that makes you feel,

Right?

We might ask ourselves,

When we're feeling greed or hatred or anger or envy,

Do we feel calm and connected?

What about when we're feeling kind or compassionate or joyful?

How does that affect our sense of calm and our feeling of connection?

Finally,

We have groundedness.

We can remember and sense into our strong,

Innate connection to this earth,

Reminding ourselves that we are a part of the earth.

We are made of earth,

Air,

Fire,

Water,

Stars.

And here you might again recall the Buddha's memory where he instinctively sat down on that cool rock and allowed the strength of the earth to hold him and cool him and shade him.

And for me,

That rock,

That image of that rock always represents a sense of steadiness and strength and it represents how powerfully the earth can hold and support us.

It also reminds me very strongly of the day of the Buddha's enlightenment when the demon god Mara stood over the Buddha with his army of demons and asked the Buddha,

Who did he think he was,

To believe that he could become enlightened.

He challenged the Buddha's doubt,

His last hindrance,

The doubt.

He said,

Who was your witness?

He screamed.

And as you all might recall,

The Buddha reached down with his hand and touched the earth.

He said,

The earth is my witness.

The earth is my witness.

And on cue,

The earth shook and flowers rained down from the trees and the Buddha became enlightened in that moment.

So touching the earth was the Buddha's way of claiming his innate belonging to all things.

He was saying,

I belong.

In fact,

We all belong and the earth is our witness.

And here,

The more we can truly realize that we are not alone,

That we are all intimately connected to the earth,

To all beings,

To everything.

This is exactly,

Exactly what can help us to feel more safe and therefore more calm.

So it really gets down to that.

When we can let go of the sense of self,

We're going to feel more calm because we won't be alone and defensive.

We'll be connected.

Super easy to do,

Right?

Yeah.

That's why it's a practice.

So speaking of practice,

I'm going to invite us in the minutes that we have left into just a very brief meditation.

We're just settling here,

Connecting to your breathing,

Connecting to the earth.

And here you might even imagine yourself as that eight-year-old child under the cool shade of the rose apple tree,

Feeling the earth holding you,

Tree shading you,

Feeling supported and connected in this way,

Feeling that groundedness.

You might even add that slight smile to the eyes and the lips,

Bringing a sense of metta,

Friendliness.

Place the focus on the breath.

The inhale and the exhale,

Consciously letting the body settle and calm.

Breathing in,

Aware of the whole body.

Breathing out,

Aware of the whole body.

Breathing in,

Calming the body.

Breathing out,

Calming the body.

Might even place a hand or both hands on the heart,

Or one hand on the heart,

One hand on the belly to tap into the heart and sense of friendliness,

Sense of being held.

You offer yourself your own care and support as you breathe.

One of the best ways to tap into a sense of calm is through the practice of gratitude and metta,

Loving friendliness,

Which are the two heart qualities that are considered the main antidotes to fear and worry.

So as you continue to breathe with a very kind heart,

You might think of some things you feel grateful for,

Allowing yourself to really feel these in the heart,

And to resonate in the heart,

And to calm the mind-heart-body.

These don't need to be big things at all.

They can be as small as that beautiful little yellow bird I saw,

Or someone opened the door for me.

Spend time with each one and let it resonate through the body-heart-mind,

Consciously calming the body as you remember.

You can't think of anything.

You can go to your senses.

Sight,

Smell,

Taste,

Touch,

Sound.

You might notice if gratitude helps you to feel connected.

Gisele Pen,

Please help me,

Please help me.

Okay.

Feel the HodANS here.

Illustration,

And this is another,

Another visual awareness,

Wash,

Wow!

And if you've lost the gentle smile in the eyes and the lips,

You might try that on again.

Okay.

Okay.

Finally,

With the eyes closed,

Listening to these words from Linda Reuther tells us,

And the great mother said,

Come my child and give me all that you are.

I am not afraid of your strength and darkness,

Your fear and pain.

Give me your tears.

They will be my rushing rivers and roaring oceans.

Give me your rage.

It will erupt into my molten volcanoes and rolling thunder.

Give me your tired spirit.

I will lay it to rest in my soft meadows.

Give me your hopes and dreams.

I will plant a field of sunflowers and arc rainbows in the sky.

You are not too much for me.

My arms and heart welcome your true fullness.

There is room in my world for all of you,

All that you are.

I will trail you in the bows of my ancient redwoods and the valleys of my gentle rolling hills.

My soft winds will sing you lullabies and soothe your burdened heart.

Release your deep pain.

You are not alone and you have never been alone.

I hope you enjoyed this talk.

These talks are always offered freely so that no one is ever denied access to these teachings and your support really makes a difference.

Dana is an ancient Pali word meaning spontaneous generosity of heart.

If you feel inspired to offer Dana,

You can do so by visiting my website at www.

Mindfulvalley.

Com.

Thank you so much.