This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Letting Alignment Emerge; AnimalSimiles(5of5)Elephant or Naga–Strength of Freedom. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by an unknown speaker at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit website www.audiodharma.org to find the authoritative record of this talk.
Hello everyone. Let’s go ahead and get started today. It’s nice to see everyone arriving, and I always appreciate how you greet each other.
In today’s meditation, we’ll continue with this general theme we’ve had of settling in and choosing an anchor of some kind, even though that’s not an exclusive focus of our attention. Today, the invitation is to allow the alignment that we feel when we’re oriented and mindful in the present moment to gain a momentum of its own. It can become less something that we do and more something that we just orient toward. We’re feeling almost that alignment, that feeling of being here, as the meditation object as much as whatever our anchor is. This is a way of allowing the meditation to start to unfold on its own with less doing from us.
With that, let’s settle in, starting as usual by finding a posture that feels comfortable, balanced, and aligned. Gently closing the eyes.
Sensing that you are here. It’s not actually a trivial, introductory kind of instruction; there’s a whole art to hereness. It already brings in the sense of: can we have humility and dignity together? So we’re here, we’re not shrinking away, we’re not hesitating, but neither are we asserting or self-aggrandizing. We’re simply here.
And in that, we look for the possibility of ease, even within a body that may have some aches and pains or may actually be sick or injured right now, and within a mind that may have some agitation due to whatever came in previously. That’s how it is. But even with this moment’s conditions, we can feel some ease. One way we do that is by inviting softening.
Softening the muscles of the face, the eyes, the jaw. The shoulders. I sometimes feel into the shoulder area, like around the collar bone, shoulder blades, and the shoulder joint—the ball and socket joint.
And then down through the torso, the heart area. Softening the diaphragm so it’s not a tight band, and letting the belly spread out and down. Reducing bracing in the arms or legs.
As some of the holding in the body releases, there’s a way in which there’s an upward release through the spine. Maybe on the in-breath, feeling how the spine would like to draw itself upward slightly, and allowing that if you feel that.
Sensing, to whatever degree it’s present, a sense of alignment through the body. Things have settled into a place of as much balance as is available right now, and that too contributes to a sense of ease.
Then there’s a way to do those same movements within the mind. Allowing the mind to be present in a simple way. Softening the attention in a simple way. Noticing how when we meet the moment with just gentle mindfulness, there’s a straightening up in the mind, an orienting. This aligning in the mind is separate from what is occupying the mind. There may be thoughts or feelings, but the knowing of that, the mindfulness, can be aligned and balanced in knowing that.
With all of that gathered together as well as it’s available, then we turn toward our chosen anchor. It could be the sensations of breathing, or other sensations in the body, such as the overall body sense or the touch points where we’re sitting, where our hands are touching. Or it may be that the orientation towards sound feels more anchoring today.
Just taking a few minutes now to sense: can I be aware of both the anchor and this background orientation and alignment that we’ve set up? So feeling both the object and how the mind is.
The invitation in this sit is, from time to time, to return to this feeling of orientation and alignment. If the mind has wandered off, or even if it’s relatively present, take a moment to feel the balance and uprightness of the mind as it gathers around the anchor object or as it continues to notice the inputs coming in—thoughts and emotions and sensations. Include also this sense of balance, of alignment, almost like another object that we pay attention to.
As we get more familiar with this feeling of alignment or orientation in the mind, we may realize that it’s not something we’re exactly doing, although it is strengthened when we notice it. See if you can let it emerge naturally, the way balancing on a bicycle is done intuitively as the bicycle rolls along. It’s not too hard to just shift slightly to keep it upright. It’s much easier when the bike is rolling than when it’s standing still. So there’s a certain emergent balance on a moving bicycle, and we can sense that in the flow of the mind and body also.
As we move toward the end of this sitting, perhaps bringing in or considering that this alignment is an attunement to the Dharma, to a natural way that things are. Bringing in our qualities of gentle mindfulness and awareness is like orienting around the Eightfold Path, the path we can take through the world. It’s said that when we are attuned to the Dharma, it can feel like turning upright that which has been overturned or knocked down.
So there’s a sense that we come into uprightness, and this can work as we walk through the world also. Maybe encountering people or situations that feel out of balance in some way, and our inner sense provides ballast, if you will, for unbalanced situations with other people. It’s also said that those who live by the Dharma live contentedly amid those who are discontent, and even live happily amid situations that are not happy.
So bringing our practice naturally into the world in this simple, internal way has an effect of bringing some balance into a world that so much needs that. May our practice support others in that way.
Okay, so today we reach the end of our sequence of animals that took us from the vulnerable quail and the foolish monkey up through the humble cow and the confident deer. The mind gradually sees more and more about itself as we walk this path, and more and more about its place in the wider picture and about what it means to live in the world with wisdom and some measure of freedom.
Today’s animal is one that represents a mind and heart that are strong and fortified with good qualities. This kind of mind is poised or ready to have deep, liberating insights. Sometimes this animal represents a mind that is free, that is already free. And that is the elephant. We’re also going to return to the simile that we started with five days ago, so hang on for that.
But for now, elephants. The Pali word for elephant is hoti1. That’s the literal animal with a trunk, and these are really impressive beings. We don’t have native elephants where I live, but I can understand how in ancient India, elephants would be chosen to represent strength, including spiritual strength. They’re large, they’re powerful, and they’re smart. And we now know, and maybe they did then also, that elephants are quite emotional. They have an emotional heart that has some apparently real kind of compassion and connection to it.
When a person’s mind is likened to an elephant, there is usually also the implication that such a person has the ability to train their own mind. So in a sense, we’re the elephant trainer as well as the elephant. These are some lines from the Dhammapada2:
In the past, this mind went wandering where it wished, as it liked, and as it pleased. Now I will retrain it wisely, as an elephant keeper does an elephant in rut. Delight in vigilance, protect your own mind. Lift yourself from a bad course, like a tusker sunk in mud.
At some point, we know what to do. We know how to practice. We can bring the mind to its fullness, its full strength, by training it and taming it. And it can become like a marvelous tamed elephant: strong and useful, and not going out to do harm in the world.
There’s another word that is sometimes translated as elephant, but it’s actually a more general term for beings that are spiritually powerful, if you will. And that word is naga3. You can call a literal elephant a naga, but nagas are also mythical, serpent-like beings. We don’t have them exactly, but maybe sort of like our good dragons. The word naga can also refer to an arahant4, a fully awakened being.
There are a number of suttas5 also about nagas, and I want to read an excerpt from one of them. It’s about how the nagas have their young, and then they get bigger and stronger as they grow. Apparently, these nagas go way up to the top of the mountains in order to have their babies. The Buddha says:
Based upon the Himalayas, the king of mountains, the nagas nurture their bodies and acquire strength. And when they have nurtured their bodies and acquired strength, then they enter the pools, and from the pools they enter the lakes, and then the streams, and then the rivers, and finally they enter the ocean. And there they achieve greatness and expansiveness of body. So too, based upon virtue, established upon virtue, a meditator develops and cultivates the seven factors of awakening, and thereby they achieve greatness and expansiveness in wholesome states.
There’s this analogy being made, right? There’s growth that goes on on this path. We won’t go through all the seven factors of awakening today, but it’s maybe useful to know that the first one of them is mindfulness. So once again, we have this as the foundation, where we started and where is always the safe place for us to be and to grow.
Like the baby nagas in the mountain pools, we may start small, but then there’s this continual process of growing. And also notice that there’s a moving into new circumstances—from the pools to the lakes to the rivers and onward to the ocean. I like to think of it as our life is not really the same as we grow along the path. Maybe we’re always in the water, but it has a way of looking different and feeling different as we gain insight. And then in some way, maybe internally, we’re meant to become large and powerful through practice.
It’s helpful as we grow to be aware of this and to actually honor the wisdom and the insights that we’ve had, no matter how simple they are. I mean, our first insight might be something like, “Wow, there’s a lot of restlessness in this mind. I had no idea I was living with this amount of craziness.” Great. That is a great insight.
One sutta says that if we encounter a naga, whether it’s a baby naga or a bigger one, in our mind or heart, we should—and this is quoting from the sutta—”leave the naga serpent, do not harm the naga serpent, honor the naga serpent.” So there’s a way in which honoring what’s gone on for us in the practice, whatever it has been so far, supports this ongoing growth in the insights that we’re having.
Another sutta points out that the footprint of any animal would fit inside the footprint of the elephant. And in the same way, any dharma teaching can fit within the teaching of the Four Noble Truths. In particular, if we start to understand something about suffering and the end of suffering in a deep way, it informs our whole practice and our whole life. Everything can orient around what we’re understanding about dukkha6 and the release of dukkha. Everything fits into that. So that’s another way that we become the elephant, if you will.
Now we can return to that same sutta that we talked about on Monday with the quail. There was an image of a little quail being bound by a vine, and it noted that even a thin vine is a strong bond for a quail. That was likened to a person who can’t give up even things that are harmful to them; they cling even to unwholesome ways of being. And that’s kind of where we start. But in this very same sutta, the elephant is the contrast that’s made to the quail. The sutta says, in the words of the Buddha:
Suppose there was a royal bull elephant with tusks like chariot poles, able to draw a heavy load, pedigreed and battle-hardened. And it was bound with a strong harness, but just by twisting its body a little bit, it would break apart its bonds and go wherever it wants. Would it be right to say that for that bull elephant, that strong harness is a strong, stout bond and a heavy yoke?
And the monks say, “No, for that bull elephant, that strong harness is weak, feeble, and insubstantial.”
In the same way, the elephant is likened to a person who is not attached even to high-quality things in their life—material things, relationships, even wholesome qualities. I’ll excerpt it for brevity. Suppose there was a wealthy layperson with plenty of material goods of high quality, and also high-quality family and relationships. And they would see a mendicant sitting in meditation in the cool shade, their hands and feet well washed after eating a delectable meal. And they would think, “Ah, the ascetic life, or the life of the dharma, is so very pleasant, so very healthy. If only I could shave off my hair and beard, dress in ochre robes, and go forth from the lay life to homelessness.” And they’re able to give up their high-quality lifestyle in order to go forth.
Again, we’re laypeople that are staying laypeople; we’re not necessarily going forth into the homeless life. But we are maybe trying to live more in line with the Dharma, which is not always the same as how the conventional world is living. And this can be challenging, right, to live in that way. So even a strong harness doesn’t bind an elephant, and it’s possible to release attachment even to things that would be considered good enough in a conventional life. “Hey, you got the job, the relationship, the house, the dog, all those things that should make you happy.” And we may have a feeling like, “not quite.” But if we release attachment to those things, we can allow the mind to move on into the deeper goodness and freedom that comes through meditative development, that comes through aligning our lives really with the Eightfold Path.
We do have material things as laypeople—maybe a job, good relationships—but the attachment to those can hold us back on our path to liberation. So it’s important to learn how to release attachments that are limiting. The weak quail can’t give up even harmful things, and the strong elephant is ready to release attachments even to high-quality things. It’s a wide range, but the elephant is not meant to be a distant goal. We’re elephants right now, whenever we can open the hand of grasping. Of course, we’re learning to release what is harmful, but we can even learn not to get caught up in benefits that we may have, like money, like good health, like family. If we hold those things lightly, then we can allow the mind to flow onward into the deeper freedoms that come from meditation, like samadhi7, like insight.
Elephants can see clearly what is truly onward-leading toward freeing the heart, and they can positively choose that over other things. So as a reflection, as we come to the end of our week, it’s worth taking a little time to reflect on what is most valuable to you. What about the Dharma is most inspiring? And be willing to choose that.
The elephant or the naga represent the strength of freedom that begins to flow in our mind and heart and can take us all the way to the ocean. So thank you for this wonderful week of the menagerie of animals, and I hope in some way it can be inspiring for your practice as we move along and support each other in our general movement toward more freedom, more clarity, and more wisdom and compassion in a world that needs that. Thank you so much for your practice and for living the Dharma life in the way that you do. It’s so beneficial. Please don’t ever doubt that. Thank you.
Hoti: The Pali word for a literal elephant. ↩
Dhammapada: A collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best-known Buddhist scriptures. ↩
Naga: A Pali word that can mean a literal elephant, but also refers to powerful, mythical serpent-like beings. In a spiritual context, it can be a term for a wise or powerful person, including an arahant. ↩
Arahant: A “perfected person” who has attained enlightenment (Nibbana). ↩
Sutta: A discourse or sermon by the Buddha or one of his disciples. These are collected in the Sutta Pitaka. ↩
Dukkha: A Pali word often translated as “suffering,” “stress,” or “unsatisfactoriness.” It is a central concept in Buddhism. ↩
Samadhi: A state of deep meditative concentration or absorption. ↩