This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Spaciousness; Supporting Samadhi (5 of 5): Equanimity. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Liz Powell at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
It’s really fun to read these greetings from all over the world. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to Friday. I’ve really been enjoying this week of practice with you and finding support for the beautiful samādhi1 teachings that Gil has been offering us, and also a little bit more time for silent meditation in the morning for discovery throughout the day to help build the cultivation of this practice.
Today, one aspect of this mind that may appear in this cultivation is spaciousness. Exploring a bit about how spaciousness matters in the development of samādhi, or may enter in. One way that it is experienced is giving plenty of room and time for this development, not crowding it with our expectations of what is supposed to happen or when. Our expectations and our hurry will actually get in the way. It’s pretty much guaranteed that expecting something to happen the way you’ve heard it from someone else, or being in some kind of hurry to acquire or attain samādhi or the jhānas2 or any meditative state, that pretty much guarantees it’s not going to happen. That striving tenses us up and makes it more difficult.
It’s a little bit like sitting a two-year-old child down to rationally explain why they shouldn’t be upset and why they should calm down when they’re in the middle of having a tantrum. A two-year-old’s brain is not developmentally ready to be rational when they want what they want. So when you’re doing a cultivation of samādhi, it’s also a kind of cultivating developmental readiness in your practice for a collected, settled mind. And you can’t force that development before the mind is ready. The mind is going through phases of showing you how it needs to be seen, the conditioning that may subtly be causing dissatisfaction and suffering that you haven’t yet seen, where there’s stress, where there’s resistance. The mind needs you to see that before it can settle into samādhi.
Another way we might think of spaciousness or experience spaciousness is through a physical and a mental sense of just how vast and all-encompassing the mind can be. The mind-body can feel very expansive and receptive to any experience that comes along. It’s as if the mind had been like a crowded room; there are so many people you could only get a vague sense of them or get to know just a couple of people. This is contrasted with an empty room where you might enter, and another person might enter, and you might be able to see them and get to know them with much more clarity.
So the key, I would say the most important thing of all, is not trying to make anything happen, instead being present for what shows itself by paying attention, remaining aware, or returning to awareness again and again, starting with the breathing in a very clear way, not just some vague sense of things, but very clearly. So with that as a few opening comments, let’s settle in.
Allowing plenty of time, plenty of room for arriving here, in the sense of how the body is right now.
Paying attention to what wants to be known and seen in the body.
Time to both allow for relaxation where that can happen, and for softening around or bringing any ease that’s possible to any area of chronic sensation. Room for recognition, too, of how the body is showing us what is happening emotionally, perhaps what’s going on in the mind. Acknowledging it, offering all of it perhaps some deeper, longer breaths.
Allowing the inhalation to bring energy into the body and the exhalation to release anything that wants to be released.
And settling into whatever is normal breathing for you right now.
Gently bringing the attention to the arising of the inhalation, following it through the body, allowing any pauses that happen, and following the release of the exhalation. Noticing how quiet, how still the attention can be while following this beautiful cycle of the breath.
And if it’s supportive, bringing in counting of the breathing in whatever way you’ve discovered helps best to keep you with the breath, present with the movement of breathing. The sensations very, very softly in the background, the counting as a support.
Allowing such a light touch with all of this that perhaps you can feel the extra space, the room that you have for it.
The breathing arising from ample spaciousness around us and releasing into that vast space.
Receiving whatever is arising, perhaps coming up alongside anything else that’s showing up for a few moments, and gently returning awareness to the breathing, to the support in the background of the counting. Everything can be received, everything respected. There’s plenty of space for it all.
And in the final minutes of the sitting, from any stillness, calm, simplicity, steadiness, spaciousness that’s been here with us, may there arise nourishment for everyone in this sangha3 and for the worlds of people and beings around each of us.
May there be safety. May there be health, wellbeing. May all beings have ease, peace, freedom from suffering. Allowing that to arise from the stillness and flow to all beings around us.
There can be a sense of spaciousness in this cultivation when the mind is finally quiet. It shows us by contrast how much is usually crowding the mind, vying for our attention. And with spaciousness can come more equanimity. There’s room for any experience to be received, to be understood as things as they’ve come to be in this moment, a natural result of the causes and conditions that preceded. And knowing that that can change.
So we have another opportunity today to notice, as we continue to practice and cultivate mindfulness, the partner, sati4, the partner of samādhi. This mindfulness in daily life can show us when the mind is relatively more spacious and when the mind is getting constricted or tightened around something. We can notice what preceded that state of mind if we check in from time to time during the day with our state of mind. Just seeing by paying clear attention, we can see that the contracted mind is not the automatic result of a busy schedule. It’s possible to be quite busy, to have a lot to do, and maybe you’ve had the experience at times of settling into a very pleasant state of focus or flow with what you were doing. By contrast, you may know from experience that there may be a time that you have plenty of time on your hands, and yet the mind is still ruminating, planning, worrying, doing, active, very busy. So discovering what actually leads to spaciousness or to contraction is a little bit of a journey to look forward to.
Having spaciousness in meditation and during the day gives us a little more breathing room, a little more ability to step back, to pause, and to receive what’s happening with some level of respect. It’s really helpful to do this in moments when we stop during the day and find that the mind is getting constricted or a little too close to something. One recommendation I’ve heard involves deliberately introducing more space into meditation or even daily life. For example, if one is stuck on a pain in the body, you know, feeling really tightened around it and just keep coming back to feeling the pain, suffering from the pain, it’s possible to introduce the idea of more space around it. So for example, think of that pain in the context of the space in the entire building you’re sitting in, or from a thousand feet above, as though an eagle were flying over and looking at the pain. At times when I’ve really found persistent pain difficult, I’ve backed all the way out into space and looked at it. It’s an interesting experience to take anything that we’re tightened around and see it from that perspective.
So today, one invitation throughout the day might be to notice, stop and notice what the quality of mind is and what preceded that, and to feel the effects in the body. Also, to continue to check in during the day with any sense of calm, with the breathing, with any stillness within as a support as well.
There will be again one final 4 p.m. silent sitting on Zoom, and you can find the link on the IMC calendar on the homepage. Find the Zoom link and find the password there. I just want to thank you for a delightful week of practice. It’s been really great to be with this beautiful sangha, and I wish everyone here freedom from suffering and a lot of freedom, spaciousness, and joy throughout the day. Be well, everybody. Bye.
Samādhi: A Pāli word for a state of meditative concentration or a collected, settled mind. ↩
Jhānas: States of deep meditative absorption. ↩
Sangha: A Pāli word meaning “community” or “assembly,” often referring to the community of Buddhist practitioners. ↩
Sati: A Pāli word meaning “mindfulness” or “awareness.” ↩