Mindfulness Without Effort: Awakening Now

Awakening is not found by searching for something foreign and distant. Rather, it's right here, available in any moment we unhook from the chattering mind to naturally rest in awareness itself. With simple pointers, we can immediately glimpse this truth that, as one Tibetan put it, is “so close you can’t see it; so subtle your mind can’t understand it; so simple you can’t believe it; so good you can’t accept it.”

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

Transcript

I encourage you just to find a relaxed way to be seated.

A way that for you is alert,

But still relaxed.

And just take a moment to fully arrive right here in this space together.

And if you feel comfortable,

You can close your eyes,

Beginning with a few full,

Deep breaths,

And expanding on the in-breath,

Relaxing on the out-breath,

Breathing deeply on that in-breath,

And then releasing with the out-breath.

And you can take one last full in-breath,

Filling the lungs,

And then just holding the breath,

Feeling the contraction within your chest,

That tension,

And then relaxing,

Releasing,

Just letting the breath be natural and easy.

As strange as this might sound,

You just might let go of the meditator,

The one who's trying to do this right,

And just be here with this experience.

Just be curious,

Interested,

Alert,

Letting things be,

Without trying to change anything,

Without trying to have some special experience,

Just allowing everything to be simply as it is.

The way things are right now is just the simple awareness of what's happening,

How things affect us,

How things feel,

Without any intervention or trying to change anything,

Simply just the consciousness of what's here,

Of the vibrancy and the aliveness of what's coming and going.

And when you're present in this way,

You can feel at any moment,

Points of strain and points of ease.

And as they happen,

You can just check out for yourself how the body is responding,

The points of tension are often felt like a contraction or a bunching up,

Perhaps just slight,

And we're not out there to change them,

Just know they're happening and there's nothing wrong.

Or you can just recognize the points of ease or these moments of openness,

Just recognizing them too.

Know they feel good without getting attached to them.

And we're just seeing what happens when the meditator gets to relax and step back,

And we're just here with everything that is happening.

You may notice that when you don't try to change anything and just let everything be as it is,

There is a natural sense of ease.

Notice when you don't need to change anything or control anything,

That there's no upset,

There's no disturbance with the way things are.

This isn't some spiritual feeling,

But just a settled,

Natural ease because you're not fighting with anything.

There's nowhere to go,

There's nothing to do,

There's no one to be.

It's a natural relaxation with experience.

The mind spends a lot of time trying to improve things or looking for something better than what's right here.

You can just offer the mind a seat to relax,

A meeting for anything to improve,

Just seeing what happens if you don't resist what's here.

It's like the sky that's watching the clouds pass,

Or maybe a storm,

Or maybe the sun shining.

And the sky is just containing everything without an opinion,

Without a judgment.

It's just being fully awake,

Just being.

For a moment,

You can focus on sounds that are rising,

Passing away.

Just attention to sounds without an opinion.

There's the sounds close by.

Place the attention on the close by sounds,

The sounds farther away.

Maybe some are naturally soothing or pleasant.

A gentle hum in the room.

And others might be distracting or unpleasant.

Just trying to see if you can welcome all the sounds as just happening.

Like each was planned by some composer,

Precisely calibrated with each pause.

Just becoming interested in the combinations of sounds,

Curious about what will happen next.

Things arising,

Things passing away.

Now seeing if you can sense into the space in which the sounds are moving.

The space that's allowing,

Welcoming all the sounds without commentary,

Open,

Spacious.

Just check for where that space is located.

See if you can feel it extend outside of yourself,

Expanding outward.

This awake feel that's not dependent upon thought.

This open field in which we experience life.

And as you're ready,

You can come gently back.

And open the eyes.

Welcome the whole visual field.

Might wiggle your toes.

Feel some sensation there.

Have you ever noticed that the things that we choose to relax or reset,

The things that we plan for our free time are often things that take us outside of our head?

They're just naturally without any sort of meditation technique.

They clear some space for us and just naturally allow us to see and hear and feel things.

And just allow the thinker to rest a little bit.

I mean those could be getting outside or getting on your bike or listening to music or playing music or dancing.

Or sports or building something or playing with animals or going for a drive.

All these things,

The things that all of us plan for in our free time and look forward to,

They all in some way share this characteristic of getting us outside of our head,

Into our direct experience and allow us to some degree to kind of lose yourself in that activity.

To kind of get absorbed in that activity.

And that's the fun of it in a way,

Right?

That's the enjoyment,

This natural sense of flow or a sense of freedom or a sense of things happening on their own without complication.

For me,

This has to do with running.

I started running years ago and then I started running longer distances precisely because I found at a certain point that my mind got tired and started to just quiet down some.

And then what was left?

Well,

What was left was just the running.

Just the running,

Just the experience.

But I'm sure we all have.

We all have whatever that is.

Whatever that activity is.

Contemporary psychology has gotten very interested in these experiences,

Sometimes referred to as flow experiences.

It's a branch of psychology which is often called positive psychology.

So you have abnormal psychologies about neuroses and psychoses and so forth.

Then you have positive psychology which is actually the study of wholesome states and what contributes to them.

And you know,

So much of this work,

There's this extraordinary overlap with the field of both meditation and also neuroscience to try to map for ourselves what it is about these positive states.

You know,

The Dalai Lama said that Buddhism was simply the science of happiness.

That's all it was.

And it was just these things that we find out to be true about who we are and what makes us happy.

And as I say,

There's just a lot of this overlap in positive psychology and the study of flow with the same things that I think that we're engaged with in meditative practices.

So these psychologists,

They study musicians and scientists and artists.

They also study middle managers who seem to have an ability to get into flow experiences also.

So it's something that's naturally available to each of us.

We each know this.

And it's not about a certain thought pattern in your head.

It's about sort of unhooking from thought in that way and still being able to move about the world.

It's like a channel that you kind of tune into and then you remember where it is and you can go back there.

So you just might try this for a second.

You just might think to yourself,

What is it that for yourself gives you that sense of flow?

Is there kind of like a go-to activity that naturally brings the sense of ease?

Whether it's being in nature or exercising or dancing or music and so forth.

Just kind of think for yourself what that thing might be.

And once you've got it,

We can just take a moment and if you just want to close your eyes and just settle in for a second.

Don't call on the meditator to help with this one.

Just see if you can be interested and curious for yourself.

And just recall,

Visualize this experience of flow and the time and place.

This natural sense of well-being,

Freedom.

Kind of a simple joy of being yourself.

You can feel the details and the place,

The colors,

The smells,

The sounds.

Let your body feel the way it did at that time.

Notice the sense of interconnectedness with something.

And now,

Still with eyes closed,

You can visualize yourself as that experience was coming to an end.

And you can let go of the visualization but just see if you can hold on to that sense of rightness,

Joy,

Simplicity.

And feel back to that natural awareness.

That sense of okayness.

And from this perspective,

Can you also sense a different attitude towards thoughts,

Emotions,

And emotions?

And in a moment we'll open our eyes and look around the room but without really going to have an opinion about anything,

Just seeing as you open your eyes in that first moment if you can look at everything from this same sense of awakeness.

So now you can gently open your eyes for a moment.

Rest in the same flow from that situation you remembered.

And just familiarize yourself with this different channel,

This flow channel.

There are various images for meditative practice.

You can imagine yourself out on a lake in the evening.

The lake is pretty calm.

And you can pick up your paddle and you can move about the lake to find a particularly beautiful spot to rest.

Or you could put your paddle down and then just simply allow the current to take your canoe through the lake wherever it wishes.

And in meditation,

Both of these approaches have their place.

One is a more intentional or deliberate practice where many of you may be familiar with spending attention on the breath or body sounds,

Trying to develop some stability,

Some concentration.

I know for myself,

That's where I started my meditative practice because I found it had this effect of taking me out of the chattering mind and suddenly cleared a little bit of space in my head which I previously didn't know existed.

It was like a miracle,

Focusing on the breath or in the body scan and feeling like I could suddenly be released from these repetitive thoughts in my head,

That cycle of anxious,

Worried thinking.

And then there are also moments when you can just simply put the paddle down and just allow a sense of simplicity and ease.

The Tibetans have a word for it which is non-meditation meditation.

So if you're trying not to meditate,

Then suddenly you're meditating.

There's the story of the fish that hears that there's something called the source of life that will fulfill all its desires.

So the fish starts out searching for it and travels the seven seas without finding it.

It's continuing to search farther and farther and finally exhausted,

The fish gives up and returns back to where it started in its home waters and encounters an old fish who asks why it's so dispirited.

So the fish says,

Well,

I've spent years looking for the source of life and I've looked everywhere and tried everything without success.

And the old fish smiles and says,

Well,

I've heard many names for the source of life but one you might recognize is water.

So could it really be that simple?

Could it be that easy?

Like the thing that we are searching for,

The resolution,

The ultimate resolution of all tension inside of us is actually right here.

If you put the paddle down.

Right here.

And there's a sense in which,

Well,

It can't be that easy.

Or maybe there's a feeling like,

Oh,

Yeah.

Like,

Yeah,

I think that's it.

And then it escapes.

So you might say to yourself,

Well,

Which is better?

The deliberate meditation practice where you develop concentration and you develop these wholesome states and bit by bit you can find more stability in these practices or this immediate glimpse of the ultimate ground of being in this flash.

So the question is,

Well,

Which is it?

Which is the way?

And the answer is,

Yes.

The answer is yes.

I can just speak for myself that I find the combination of the two to be very enriching.

That,

You know,

The deliberate practices,

The intentional practices that I've done for 20 years,

It's almost like those are hardwired inside of me.

It's like I've got this structure,

The way of understanding the world,

The way of practicing,

Which I think will never leave me.

At the same time,

These glimpses have been really important for me.

That immediate sense that it's not hiding.

It's like in plain view.

So how do you practice with these?

Well,

One teacher just says small glimpses many times.

Small glimpses many times.

Two or three a day is plenty.

Just two or three.

It's an opportunity to unhook from the mind,

Rest back into this non-conceptual knowing,

This just pure simplicity of awareness itself.

The word mindfulness,

Which is obviously so much a part of this vocabulary,

The four foundations of mindfulness that the Buddha taught and so forth,

Is actually the translation,

The Victorian translation of a word from Pali,

Which was the word in which the Buddhist discourses were first written.

Sati,

S-A-T-I is translated as mindfulness.

But it literally means remembering.

And so there is a sense in which these glimpses are this sudden reminder of our true nature that's right there.

And it's challenging to describe accurately these things.

I think for any one of us you can feel something and then you have this question Is that it?

Is that it?

Or is there something more?

I mean,

That was good,

Right?

Don't get me wrong.

But is there something more?

I think there is.

There must be.

Can't be that hard.

Easy.

Wait.

There's a famous saying from the naturalist and illustrator James Audubon who authored the first bird book Birds of America who was asked what to do when the bird that you see doesn't match the book.

And so he commented when the bird and the book disagree believe the bird.

So in the same way all of us I think will find different words or different expressions for these experiences,

For these glimpses.

But they are like the finger pointing at the moon which you couldn't find if somebody didn't point but the finger itself is obviously what you're not concerned with.

The finger you're concerned with the actual moon itself.

I think common to these different glimpses is the ability of the manager or the organizer mind to step back to move attention away from the thought factory inside of your head and not to in any way denigrate thought.

The Buddha said that actually thinking was the sixth sense that the five senses seeing,

Hearing and so forth you could add to those the last one which was thinking which was an insight into the fact that thinking is something that naturally occurs that thoughts proliferate all day long and we shouldn't have any quarrel with that.

I myself when I first started meditating and I started going on these longer silent retreats I had identified the problem as thinking and so one of these retreats I decided that I would take as my goal to stop thought and so I spent several days on this mission to stop thinking inside my head and it did not go well.

So after a couple of days I was completely defeated I was dead in the water,

Discouraged I went to see the teacher and I explained well you see the problem is really thinking and if you could just stop thinking then you would have just this clear open view of everything and he said don't try that please don't try that you can't stop thinking it's impossible and as the Buddha said it's just the sixth sense something that will always be happening inside of your head and the manager-organizer is 100% necessary the Buddha after his enlightenment what did he do?

His manager-organizer went out and created monasteries he traveled all throughout that part of India teaching for 40 years so he had a very strong organizer-manager but the problem is that that organizer-manager that thought factory will not liberate you it will not liberate you and when we hand over this job of our self-liberation to the thought factory it's not going to go anywhere because when you do that then there's just another stream of self-referencing thoughts about yourself over and over again Einstein had a saying that you can't solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it you can't solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it so if you want to liberate your mind you're not going to do it inside the thought factory so one way of thinking about this is actually in a purely spatial way and I think all of us in that sense of when you have the strong sense of the me the who I am I think that almost always gets attached to something going on in your head and one teacher even describes it as the little mini-me that inhabits up there in your head and that's the little mini-me that interacts with the world sort of goes out to the world interacts with it,

The world comes back and so forth so one way to think about this is to think about the ways in which we can unhook awareness from the head and so you can try this one just a comfortable way of sitting again you can close your eyes briefly and this is again just a simple awareness you don't need the meditator for this one you can just start with awareness of the breath as it enters and leaves the belly or the chest just for a moment just recognize the rising and falling of the breath and as you're focusing on the breath you can notice where you are focusing from which naturally for most of us will be located in your head maybe behind your eyes so just for a moment locate that's where you are aware from as you observe the rising and falling of the breath and feel that you can unhook that awareness from the area that you're focusing and feel it's like an invisible bubble of awareness that moves downward from your head and down into your jaw so that bubble of awareness is now experiencing your jaw from within your jaw and the awareness can now move to be aware of your throat from directly within your throat and notice that you're not stretching attention from your head down to your throat you can notice that you don't need to go back up to your head to check on things you're just aware of your throat as this space this aliveness in that area and you can feel the awareness now drop from your neck to be aware of your breath directly from within your chest or your abdomen awareness of the breath from inside the breath in the chest or abdomen rising and then relaxing the breath happening by itself awareness happening by itself awareness as spacious pervasive within the body and as you're ready you now this is the meditator stepping back for a moment and the awareness dropping from the thought factory into a sense of non-conceptual knowing but direct knowing from within the body it's a feeling of natural awareness it's not a need to focus but a simplicity in Zen they speak about taking the backwards step taking a backwards step so as organizer manager has its place but stepping back from it you can feel this natural relaxation the organizer manager is solving problems all the time for you at work,

With your family but then remembering this remembering of mindfulness calling to mind what else is here other than the problem solver so you can just ask yourself this question that what's here now when there's no problem to solve not needing to go find the meditator and understanding that we're solving problems all day long but the problem solver is just one part of human experience so let the awareness drop from the problem solver just drop and feel all around at what is here right now when there's no problem to solve when you don't orient towards thought or go down to sleep just ask yourself what's aware now when there's no problem to solve can you feel the quality of what's here where are you aware from what is this feeling of just being from this beginner's mind just asking what's here when there's no problem to solve so close you can't see it so subtle your mind cannot understand it so simple you can't believe it so good you cannot accept it and you can come gently back