This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: The Safety of Mindfulness; Animal Similes (1 of 5): Quail - Finding Safety. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Ines Freedman at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit website www.audiodharma.org to find the authoritative record of this talk.
Okay, so why don’t we go ahead and get started? It’s very nice to see everyone and nice to have a chance to be back again with you this week. I know that Gil has started his insight series—who knows how long that one will be, right after the Samadhi1 series—and Shelley talked last week about the sense bases as kind of a support for doing insight practice.
So this week, we’re going to take up a series of similes that help shine a light on how the mind transforms from being timid and distracted to being strong and clear in some way. In a very broad way, you could think of it as a journey of what happens to the mind as it gradually gains more insight and becomes able eventually to walk the path on its own. And how are we going to talk about that this week? We’ll look at a series of animal similes. I’m smiling because I’m kind of delighted by this prospect. There’s a lot of animal similes in the sutras2, the teachings of the Buddha, and so we’ll be going through some of them as similes for this process of the mind. I’ll say more about that after we sit.
So on that, why don’t we go ahead and meditate together?
Allowing yourself to come into a comfortable posture, one where you can be upright and also relaxed, or if you’re lying down, where you feel generally straight and balanced. And if you’re comfortable doing so, I invite you to close your eyes.
Maybe take a long, slow, deep breath and really fill the lungs. And then on the exhale, just allow the body to settle a little bit more into the posture, letting any imbalances or tensions that are easy to soften just relax out.
Then it’s helpful to connect in with the body at the beginning of a sit. So just noticing the sensations in your face and softening the expression on the face, maybe around the eyes, jaw muscles. Softening the eyes in the eye sockets.
And down into the shoulders, inviting some release. I sometimes imagine my shoulder blades sliding down the back. Down through the arms and the hands.
And as the shoulders soften a bit, you may be able to feel the head kind of uplift. The neck gets released somehow. That provides a nice kind of upward feeling to the spine.
Softening in the chest and the heart area. Gently extending down into the belly. Inviting the belly to be soft, maybe just one or two layers of it. Even feeling down into the low back, letting that soften a bit. And as the belly and the low back both soften, the spine which is in between them, we really have a chance to feel how balanced that is. Seeing if we can find that simple place where it’s easy to be upright.
And softening through the hip joints, down into the legs, all the way to the feet.
And if there were parts of the body that are just in pain today or they’re chronically uncomfortable, or if there are tensions or even areas of the body that you couldn’t feel very well, that’s all fine. Actually, the body is fine as it is. We’re just inviting a connection to it.
Then opening the attention back to the body in general, feeling the posture you’re in—sitting or lying down, maybe some of you are even standing. And sensing our simple presence, mindfulness, to be here.
One of the simplest and most easeful ways to sit is to have what’s called an anchor. And I’ll invite a choice of three different possibilities. Many people sit with the breath as the anchor, the sensations of in-and-out breathing. That’s a great choice. It’s also possible to use more generally the sensations of the body as an anchor. Sometimes I sit with the feeling of where I’m sitting, so all the contact points—my seat against the cushion and my feet against the floor, wherever my hands are resting. Those touch points make a very nice meditation object. Or if you prefer, you can use sound if the body is not a good choice for you or not today. Just the simple, natural sounds that you’re hearing coming and going can be a very restful place to put the mind.
So don’t try all three, but choose the breath, the body, or sounds as a simple anchor.
And just see if the mind can naturally tune in. All of these objects are gently changing, so that can be easy for the mind to find its way to resting with it. A little bit of gentle movement feels nice.
It’s very natural that the mind will fall away from the object or become caught up in some way. If you’ve meditated for more than five minutes, you’ll know this. And I know some of you have meditated for quite a while. But when we notice that, of course, the mindfulness is already returned. And the invitation for this sit is to notice explicitly the feeling of groundedness in being present. It actually feels more easeful, more anchored in some way to be present than to be wandering off thinking about tomorrow or what that person said yesterday.
We might miss the advantages of being present if we don’t look for them. So it may be subtle at first, but notice the clarity, the groundedness of mindfulness.
And I’ll also offer a second invitation, in addition to perceiving mindfulness as having clarity and groundedness. Maybe try out perceiving this feeling as an aspect of safety. So when the mind and the body are together in the present moment, there’s an extra dimension of safety that is not present when the mind is caught up, when the mind is following its distractions.
When the mind is spread out or distracted, it’s kind of like when we’re carrying a fragile bowl and we’ve got it in one hand and our hand is wet and we’re walking quickly. And then we remember, “Oh, I should be careful with this bowl.” And so we hold it with both hands close to the body and we walk slowly, and it feels so different. So when the mind and the body are together, just being mindful of experience, we’re holding that bowl safely, carefully. Can we sense that?
When we perceive mindfulness as a form of safety, we may naturally enjoy being present, even if what we’re present for is a difficult mind state or pain in the body. Still, there’s this sense of, “Yeah, but I’m here for it. This is the place where I can meet it most skillfully.” So you may also notice the natural, simple ease and enjoyment of being fully with experience, safely.
And as we move toward the end of this sitting, we can notice that mindfulness, with its accompanying sense of safety, clarity, and groundedness, is a way of taking care, taking care with our experience. And in a similar way, when we are mindful going about our daily life or interacting with other people, there’s also an element of care that comes when we bring our clear attention to that.
If we go through life distracted, moving quickly, with an attitude of, “Let’s just get it done,” or “I wish I weren’t having to do this right now,” or “I don’t want to interact with this person,” all of those things actually endanger us in certain ways. We’re more likely to say something we didn’t want to say or that is not helpful. We’re more likely to get injured, drop something on our foot. We’re more likely just to not enjoy the time, not feel a sense of well-being or ease. It’s not that everything we do we’re going to enjoy naturally or that every interaction is going to be easy or friendly, necessarily. But if we’re fully present, again, we’re adding that doing it carefully, doing it as wisely and as compassionately as is possible in that moment. So again, there’s safety in being present and being willing to stay with things.
So the invitation is to try that out today and see if it’s the case that there’s a sense of refuge, safety in being present, whether it’s pleasant or whether it’s unpleasant, serving ourselves and others in a caring way.
Okay, we’ll be talking about a series of animal similes this week, and I’vechosen them such that they are meant to represent different stages of the mind’s journey from being reactive and caught up to being more wise and strong. This is a journey that we go on as we undertake mindfulness practice, as we develop samadhi1—some gathering of the mind—and as we have genuine insights, not only into our own life but into the nature of suffering and the end of suffering. And so that means that we’ll generally go from weaker animals to stronger animals, if you will. Don’t take it too literally. We’re not insulting the animals that are early in the week. These similes that are given by the Buddha are meant to be figurative. They’re meant to help us reflect on our own minds and our own lives. And they also offer teachings in how to practice well and how to understand some of the important aspects of the dharma.
So today, we’re going to start with the quail. When I was at IRC one spring, I frequently saw a quail pair with their chicks, and it was quite amazing to me because they had something like 17 of them. I couldn’t actually quite count them all when they were going by, but I tried and I got close to 17. So I thought about also about how well protected they would be if they were to stay inside of IRC’s fence. IRC has a deer fence all the way around it, so if they stayed inside, there would be no threat from coyotes or foxes or things like that. I mean, there would still be IRC’s cats, maybe hawks, but IRC has a lot of forest. So, you know, overall the sense was that quails don’t really fly all that well and they do look kind of vulnerable moving around with a big cluster of tiny chicks.
So I realized that this image that’s given in the sutras2 is pretty accurate then. First of all, the quail is portrayed as physically weak. This is a quote from a sutta2:
Suppose a quail was tied with a vine and was waiting there to be injured, caged, or killed. Would it be right to say that for that quail, that vine is weak, feeble, rotten, and insubstantial?
The Buddha asks this question, and the monks say, “No, no, for that quail, the vine is a strong, firm, and stout bond, a tie that has not rotted, and a heavy yoke.” So for a quail, even a vine can be quite a substantial bond.
And then the analogy is extended from physical weakness to represent also a certain kind of lack of mental fortitude. Not that we would have that all the time, but you know, we have our moments, right? So it goes on to liken the quail to a person who wants to practice in a sense, or even wants to ordain. But we could just say for lay people, to practice more seriously, to have a regular practice, but they find that they’re not able to give up even things that aren’t serving them very well. So again, from the sutta, and I have to apologize a little bit for the literal language that’s used, but I’m trusting since we’re on a whole week of similes, we can make that translation in our minds.
So it says:
Suppose there was a poor man with few possessions and little wealth. He had a single broken-down hut open to the crows, not the best sort. And a single broken-down couch, not the best sort, and a single pot for storing grain, not the best sort. And his relationships were also not the best sort. And then he would see a person practicing, sitting in meditation in the cool shade, their hands and feet well washed after eating an alms meal. And he would think, “Oh, the life of practice looks so very pleasant. The life looks very healthy. If only,” and now it uses the monastic image, “If only I could shave off my hair and beard, dress in ochre robes, and go forth into this life of practice.” But he is not able to give up his broken-down hut, broken-down couch, his pot, or his poor relationships, none of which are the best sort, in order to go forth. Would it be right to say that for that man, those bonds are weak, feeble, rotten, and insubstantial?
And of course, the monks reply, “Oh no, for that man, even those not-of-the-best-sort things are strong, firm, and stout bonds.”
So even if we have possessions or life situations that are not serving us well, maybe they’re not even healthy for us, if we can’t give them up or change them, they are real fetters and burdens and bonds for us. As an extreme example, people who have addictions of various kinds, their bodies are being damaged, they’re using up their money, their relationships are not healthy, and yet the nature of addiction is that it’s very hard to give up even those things that are making life difficult. And then, you know, we may see in ourselves reflections of this. Maybe we’re stuck in a job that is very stressful for us or a living situation that is not easy. And sometimes we may even be given a chance to change, but we waffle and we hesitate because we’re not sure about giving up even this harmful situation just because we have it. It happens all the time. And this is where we start, actually, in our practice, is that we’re clinging to things that are not even supportive for us.
So we can notice that the English verb “to quail” means to give way, to falter, to collapse, to cower. It’s not a very common verb, but it is, I think the quail was chosen partly because of its resonance with that English verb.
But hang on, I’ve set us up that we can now provide some hope. There is some hope for the quail given in another sutta. There are other quail sutras, and it starts out with the quail getting in trouble. But hang on. So this is now from a different sutta. It’s a story the Buddha is actually telling. And he says:
Once in the past, a hawk suddenly swooped down and seized a quail. And then while the quail was being carried off by the hawk, he lamented, “Oh, we were so unlucky, of so little merit. We strayed out of our own resort and into the domain of others. If we had stayed in our own resort today, in our own ancestral domain, this hawk wouldn’t have stood a chance against me in a fight.”
So the quail gets caught by the hawk when it’s straying from its ancestral domain, is actually what the text says. And then the story goes on with the hawk kind of mocking the quail a little bit and saying, “Well, what is your ancestral domain?” And the quail says, “It’s a freshly plowed field covered with clods of soil.” And so the hawk is a little bit arrogant and lets the quail go, and the quail goes back to the field that is his own ancestral domain. And then the hawk actually gets a little overconfident and tries to attack the quail there and ends up injuring itself and not able to get the quail.
So all that’s a little violent sounding, but again, there’s an analogy given where the quail gets in trouble when it’s gone outside the field, and the hawk gets in trouble trying to attack the quail in the field. Each one has the realm where it kind of belongs. And so the Buddha uses this as an analogy for our mind. He says if you don’t, if you let your mind stray into areas that are not helpful for it, he uses the term Mara3. Mara will gain access to those who stray outside their own resort. Mara being the name for the forces of distraction, of unwholesomeness in the mind.
And so the Buddha then goes on to say, “Well, what is our own ancestral domain? You know, where can our mind be safe?” And he says, “The four establishments of mindfulness.” So he says:
Here monks, a monk dwells, or a practitioner dwells, contemplating the body in the body, ardent4, clearly aware, and mindful, having removed covetousness and displeasure in regard to the world. A meditator dwells contemplating feelings in feelings, mind in mind, dharmas in dharmas, ardent, clearly comprehending, and mindful, having removed covetousness and displeasure in regard to the world.
So we belong in the four foundations of mindfulness, and the domain of others is in the realm of distraction, in the realm of getting attached to what he actually says, the Buddha says, is the five cords of sensual pleasure: forms cognizable by the eye that are desirable, lovely, agreeable, pleasing, and tantalizing. And the same for sounds and smells and tastes and sensations.
So this is a little bit what Shelley talked about last week, is when we get caught up in our sense world in a way that is not helpful, ways that it’s either attached to it, grabbing after it, or pushing it away. Then we are easily subject to forces in the mind that are uncomfortable for us, that get us in trouble, by which we say things that are not helpful for relationships. Whereas if we stay mindful, we stay with our body, we stay with the feeling tone, we understand what’s happening in our internal world, it’s so much easier to interact well with our life, with ourselves, with others.
And so we have the quail. The story of the quail is that he was smart enough to realize, “Oh, I strayed outside and I got caught by the hawk, but if I had stayed in the field, it would have been fine.” And sure enough, he gets tested, right? Because the hawk lets him go into the field and can’t get hold of him. So in the same way, if we realize, “Oops, I was caught up. I was caught up in wanting and not wanting and distraction,” as soon as we realize that, if we return to mindfulness, we can feel actually how maybe we’re still kind of irritated, but it’s just irritation. We just observe, “Oh, the mind’s irritated right now,” and we’ve pulled back into this realm of safety, just knowing that Mara’s there, but we’re not caught by Mara.
So it’s good news for us as practitioners. Even if we’re new practitioners or if we’re not so wise yet, we’re protected by mindfulness practice. The Buddha’s instructions to keep our attention in these particular realms is really good advice. And by the way, it doesn’t change later when we become more experienced. It’s always just the four foundations of mindfulness all the way through.
So the quail, generally depicted as weak physically, mentally prone to being attacked in various ways. But if the quail remembers to come back into the ancestral domain of the four foundations of mindfulness, then immediately safety is available. And we can use this in our everyday life and in our practice on the cushion. So this is our foundation for the week, is that when our mind has moments of being like the quail, there is safety available always.
So I wish you well in your mindfulness practice, and we’ll go on with another animal tomorrow. Thank you.
Samadhi: A Pali word for a state of meditative concentration or collectedness of mind. The original transcript said “samadei.” ↩ ↩2
Mara: In Buddhism, a demonic celestial king who personifies the forces of temptation, distraction, and spiritual obstruction. ↩
Ardent: The original transcript said “hardened,” which is a likely transcription error for “ardent,” a common term in this Buddhist formula meaning enthusiastic or passionate. ↩