Meditation: A Way of Awakening - Chapter Twelve (end of series)

Ajahn Sucitto, an elder western disciple of Ajahn Chah and abbot of Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery in England, has written a new book entitled Meditation: A Way of Awakening. This book is still in its production phase, and is yet to be printed. However, Abhayagiri Monastery is glad to be able to make this new text available via our website. We will be posting one chapter at a time, each Monday and Friday for six weeks.

The other chapters of this book that have already been published, are available at http://www.abhayagiri.org/index.php/main/teacher_other/C24

Kindness

Centre your awareness in your body, being aware of the general form of the posture, and the textures of the body. Acknowledge the spine and the structures that support the body's mass. Imagine you are sitting in an armchair, or in a warm bright place that makes you feel good. Give yourself time to take that in. Let the steady rhythm of your breathing come to your attention... Sense how that is maintaining your life, with each in-breath and out-breath washing energy through the body. Feel the pulses in the body, governing the warm blood flow through the tissues. Take in the sense of all this as carrying and supervising your life force.

Draw your attention steadily from the most central core of your body out through the mass that surrounds it… the firm or soft tissues. Consider the vitality and sensitivity of all this. Pick up the sense of wishing it well, the inclination towards its health. Move that warm sense around the body, including places that feel unwell or neutral as well as vigorous.

Draw your attention out to the surface of your body; to how you sense the skin. Be aware of it like a sheet or a blanket enclosing your person. Be aware of it as a protective boundary; and also acknowledge it as something that connects inner to outer and is porous. Feel the energies at this boundary tingling and pulsing as your body senses the outer world. Move between what is inside the skin – any sense of being ‘in here’ – and the sense of ‘out there.’ Acknowledge the alertness at this periphery; settle and calm there, keeping one's sense of ‘out there’ to be the space just a few centimetres in front of the body. Complete this space, sensing it wrapping the entire body like a second skin – above, below, in front, behind. Let your awareness move into this in this way, just as it has moved from the core to the surrounding tissues in the body. Sense this space as a further, subtle layer, a finer skin that can also enclose, protect and connect in a suffusive way. Acknowledge the benevolence, the inclination to nurture.

Contemplate the energy of connection, that which attunes to balance and harmony between inner and outer. Sit, stand, walk or recline in that, letting the awareness take in the benevolence of the connected space.

Imagine the space itself sensing your body. Let the energy in the space radiate back over your skin... rather like a warm sun. First from the forward direction, over the general bodily form, then a zone at a time. Begin with the abdomen, letting the space receive the breathing movement there and take that in... then up over the chest... and any held or stiff places... and then over the throat, keeping a spacious sense that allows full, easy breathing. Finally let the energy wash over the face – the mouth, cheeks, eyes and brow – bathing each area and organ with kindness. If there are difficulties with this, try to recollect an occasion when one received some kindness from another person. Recall how that felt, return to that feeling, and try to sit within that in the present. Work kindness into the tissues, moving around the entire body.

Come back to the sensed space and acknowledge that this extends further out. Get a sense of the boundlessness, without going out. Stay connected to the body, from its core through to its periphery and into the immediate space, but let your sensing go out as if you were feeling out the space around you. Let the sense of benevolence extend with that awareness, aiming at nothing in particular, while maintaining the connection to the body. Settle into that sense of extended, unhindered openness with no object.

Imagine someone you are fond of or someone you respect is going to move into that extended space. Notice if the energy changes, and stay connected to your bodily presence. Let the imagination rest. Bring up that impression of a friend several times, acknowledging any effects in terms of mood, and to what extent that affects your energy. Integrate the energy into the entire body, especially the back of the body. Don't lose parts of your body, or switch off parts of your extended awareness. With the exercise of staying centred and whole, allow the friend to come nearer and be at a comfortable distance in front of you. Take in and send out the energy of well-being and kindness. Then let them move away, and maintain the energy and inclination of kindness.

Practise like this with a known person towards whom one has mixed feelings. Then with a neutral acquaintance. Don't attach to the mood changes. Keep the sense of connected space, your own bodily presence and the sense of exchanging energy: receive what is out there, and send forth what is in here. If what is out there seems unbalanced or overwhelming, consolidate your own presence by sensing the bodily core, then the surrounding mass, then the skin and the space immediately around. Let what is received wash over the periphery and be assimilated there, allowing it in as feels appropriate. You can conclude the practice there, or take it further.

If you choose to go further, practise like this with someone whose presence brings up negative states: perhaps of a milder degree at first, beginning with someone whom you caricature or make fun of – that lack of graciousness, that removal of dignity. Invite them into a connected space where you acknowledge the shared dilemmas and joys of existence. Then practise with the perception of someone whom you think does not respect or like you – that lack of warmth. Then maybe someone who brings up anxiety. At first as if they were distant... and then coming closer at a pace and to a
proximity with which you feel comfortable.

Keep your own presence clear. Whatever is received or comes up, keep your own conscious sending-forth free from the wish to harm or blame. Keep your awareness connected to your own presence, to the impression of the other and to the space between you. Align your intentions to holding and letting the energy in that connection be free from ill-will. Allow moods, perceptions and reactions to arise within that connected space. Staying open allows them to subside within that kindly space.
You can conclude the practice there, or take it further.

Practise this with perceptions of people whom you think lowly of or despise, then those that bring up stronger aversion. Then pick up the less pleasing aspects of someone whom you generally like; and the worthy aspects of someone you dislike. The practice is to receive these perceptions and moods in a warm space, relaxing any contractions of ill-will.

Then practise in this way with perceptions of yourself: from the favoured and successful and competent to the unfavourable, flawed, and inadequate. ‘I have to carry all this, may I be well. May I hold this in an extended and kindly awareness.’

After an appropriate period of time, let the imagination rest, and wrap the kindness around and within your bodily presence.

Difficulties

You may assume that you have to bring up a positive loving attitude before it begins by itself. Part of the skill of the practice is to sense where a non-averse, at ease, state can be felt already and tuning in to that. Another part is to stay out of, or put aside, topics and impressions that generate ill-will, resentment, or depression, until you have the resources to heal those states. The sense of dwelling in kindness, rather than having to feel it, will then gradually grow by itself.

I choose beginning with the body because it doesn’t carry negativity in terms of topics; and also because tuning into the body brings the mind out of its topics and also out of its agitated or depressed energies. However, you may also begin the practice by recollecting good people, or kind actions that have been done to you in your life. And further, good actions that you have done (or unskilful behaviour that you have put aside).

Sometimes we don’t detect kindness. Consider it as an ‘at home, no pressure’ feeling.

Sometimes we don’t detect ill-will. Consider people whom you assume to be less intelligent, less caring, less physically capable than yourself. How would you feel about being with them, talking with them, dining with them, or working together? How do you feel about people of different ethnicity, gender, or social status? If you detect a shrinking away sense, can you be with that and relax that boundary? Outside of meditation, what would help you to do that?

If this form doesn’t help you…

Focus your practice on an animal that you feel warmed or delighted by.

Try talking about your life or your concerns with a sympathetic listener. If you don’t feel that you have one, try helping other people and listening to them.

Further

Focus on the experience of goodwill as a mental phenomenon. Sense the energy of it spreading out, and letting go of the images and impressions that support it, use it as a base for concentration.