True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart (6 page)

The practice of mindfulness is a direct gateway to natural presence. “Coming back” guides you in returning to presence when you have become distracted. This will help you maintain a focused attention in the present moment.

Find yourself a comfortable seated posture. You will be most wakeful and alert if you sit on a chair, cushion, or kneeling bench with your back and posture as upright, tall, and balanced as possible. Around an erect posture, let the rest of your skeleton and muscles hang freely. Let the hands rest comfortably on your knees or lap. Let the eyes close, or if you prefer, leave the eyes open, with the gaze soft and receptive.

Take several full deep breaths, and with each exhale, consciously let go, relaxing the face, shoulders, hands, and stomach. Then, after resuming a natural rhythm of breathing, choose an anchor for your meditation. Often the most useful anchors are sensory based. You might attend to:

Take some moments to bring a full, relaxed, and intimate attention to your anchor. You might imagine that your entire awareness is right here, open to the moment-to-moment flow of your breathing (or other sensations or sounds). You don't need to force your attention; rather, see if it is possible to receive the experience and to relax with the changing expression of your chosen anchor. Sense how your anchor connects you with the wakefulness and “hereness” at the hub of the wheel.

Whatever your anchor, you will very soon discover that your mind is distracted, leaving the hub and circling around in thought. These distractions are totally natural—just as the body secretes enzymes, the mind generates thoughts! There is no need to judge the thoughts or make them the enemy; rather, whenever you notice a thought, honor that moment of recognition as a moment of awakening. This respectful attitude is key to coming home and reconnecting with a full presence.

When you realize you've been lost in thought, you might find it is helpful to acknowledge that by saying to yourself, “This is a thought” or, “Thinking, thinking.” Then just pause—there is no need to rush back to your home base. You will naturally return to presence by taking a few moments to listen to sounds; to again relax your shoulders, hands, and belly; and to relax your heart. Notice the difference between any thought and the vividness of hereness! Then gently guide your attention back to your anchor as a way of sustaining presence at the hub of the wheel.

Continue to practice with the intention of recognizing thoughts and, over and over, return to a relaxed focus on your anchor. This simple practice of coming back to the hub of the wheel is a powerful way of establishing the atmosphere for mindful awareness. Even as you expand your meditation practice, this training can continue as a key element in your daily practice.

Guided Meditation: Being Here

“Being here”
directly cultivates the openness and clarity of mindful awareness—the alert stillness at the hub of the wheel. Together, “coming back” and “being here” introduce some of the key mindfulness skills that comprise vipassana meditation.

Set yourself in a sitting position that allows you to be alert and relaxed. Allow your attention to scan through your body and if you notice areas of obvious tension, see if it is possible to soften some and let go. Then bring your attention to your chosen anchor and take whatever time is necessary to practice “coming back.” While at first the mind might be restless and distracted, after a few minutes you might notice there are larger gaps between the thoughts, and more moments of resting with your anchor at the hub of the wheel.

Continue with a steady yet light attention on your chosen anchor, yet also include in awareness whatever you notice in the background of your sensory experience. For instance, you might be using the inflow and outflow of the breath as your home base, while also being aware of the sounds in the room, a feeling of restlessness, an itch, heat. For a time, these experiences may come and go without drawing your attention away from your anchor. But if an experience has a compelling quality—if it calls your attention—then allow it to replace your anchor in occupying the foreground of your attention. Perhaps you will become strongly aware of feeling sleepy. Your job is simply to
recognize and allow
whatever you experience about “sleepy.” Sense sleepiness as a constellation of sensations in your body. Notice where you are most aware of the feelings, and what they are like. Is there burning behind the eyes? Weight or pressure at the chest? Fuzziness in the mind? Notice how the sensations change: Do they get stronger, stay the same, or fade? Continue to attend to sleepiness—noticing what it is like and “letting be”—until it no longer calls your attention.

Sometimes you'll find sleepiness has morphed into something else that is compelling, perhaps anxiety about being sleepy. You might be having thoughts about wasting your time in the meditation, or fear about being tired throughout the day. Be aware of the thoughts (“thinking, thinking”) and feel the sensations of fear in the body. Is there tightness in the chest? A sore or squeezing feeling? Just as with sleepiness, notice how the sensations move and change in intensity, and let them be just as they are. When they no longer call your attention, return to your anchor. In this way, whatever arises—thoughts, emotions, sensations—is included in the hub of the wheel, received with a nonjudging presence. You practice is simply to recognize and allow what is here.

As a support in being here, you might make a mental note when strong experiences arise. Naming your sensations (“burning, burning”), emotions (“fear, fear”), and types of thoughts (“worrying, worrying”) can help you to more clearly recognize what is happening inside you, without leaving the presence at the hub of the wheel. Let the tone of your mental whisper be gentle and accepting: The purpose of the noting is to help you connect with your actual experience without judgment or resistance. There is no need to work at finding the right label, or to try to name everything that is going on. If the noting feels distracting or clumsy—if it interferes with the flow of presence—then either use it quite sparingly or put it aside altogether.

If your mind is somewhat busy and continues leaving the hub of the wheel, it is natural that your mediation include a fluid movement between “coming back” and deepening presence with “being here.” Yet if you find the mind becomes fairly settled, you might explore letting go of your anchor. Without any effort to direct your attention, rest in the still alertness at the hub of the wheel and receive whatever arises in awareness. Thoughts might come and go, the sensations of the breath, a sound outside, a twinge of fear. Let your only intention be to recognize and allow what is happening, moment to moment to moment. By letting go of control and relaxing with the changing flow of experience, you will begin to inhabit the fullness of natural presence. Notice how the hub of the wheel is actually quite boundless; how rather than a particular location of “here,” experience is arising and passing in the wakeful openness of awareness itself. Rest in this awareness, allowing all of life to live through you.

The great gift of a spiritual path is coming to trust that you can find a way to true refuge. You realize that you can start right where you are, in the midst of your life, and find peace in any circumstance. Even at those moments when the ground shakes terribly beneath you—when there's a loss that will alter your life forever—you can still trust that you will find your way home. This is possible because you've touched the timeless love and awareness that are intrinsic to who you are.

Looking back through history, and across many religious and spiritual traditions, we can recognize three archetypal gateways that appear again and again on the universal path of awakening. For me, the words that best capture the spirit of these gateways are “truth,” “love,” and “awareness.” Truth is the living reality that is revealed in the present moment; love is the felt sense of connectedness or oneness with all of life; and awareness is the silent wakefulness behind all experience, the consciousness that is reading these words, listening to sounds, perceiving sensations and feelings. Each of these gateways is a fundamental part of who we are; each is a refuge because it is always here, embedded in our own being.

If you're familiar with the Buddhist path, you may recognize these gateways as they appear in their traditional order:

However, in the chapters that follow, I've sequenced the gateways differently, in the way that I've found makes them most accessible. For many people, especially those training in meditation, contacting the truth of the present moment is the first opening to inner refuge. For others, it is awakening love. Usually it is after becoming familiar with these gateways of truth and love that we explore turning toward formless awareness itself. In time, reflection on any of the gateways will naturally lead to the others. They are truly inseparable.

The same gateways are central to the Hindu path and denoted in Sanscrit terms:
sat
(ultimate truth or reality);
ananda
(love or bliss), and
chit
(consciousness or awareness). And they appear again in some interpretations of the Christian trinity: Father (source or awareness); Son (awareness in form or the living reality/truth); and Holy Spirit (love, the love between father and son).

Does all this seem rather abstract, out of reach when we're caught up in our daily struggles? How can we enter these gateways in our everyday lives? If you look again, you'll see that each domain of refuge has both an outer and an inner aspect. The outer expressions of the refuges are the sources of healing, support, and inspiration that we find in the world around us. We can learn from wise teachings (truth). We can be nourished by the warmth of good friends and family (love). We can be uplifted by the example of spiritual leaders (awareness.) Every religion and spiritual path offers these outer refuges. If we are willing to engage with them, they can offer us immediate, concrete help in living our daily lives. Yet each outer refuge also offers something more: It is a portal to the inner refuges of pure awareness, the living flow of truth and boundless love. As we inhabit these expressions of our true nature, the trance of separation dissolves and we are free.

The Gateway of Truth

In Pali, the language of the earliest Buddhist scriptures, the word
dharma
can mean “path,” “way,” or “nature of things.” When I and other Buddhist teachers offer “dharma talks” at our classes and retreats, we address three ways we can begin to take refuge in truth: working with our inner life through meditation practice; dedicating ourselves to wise, ethical behavior; and understanding the teachings or truths that guide us on the spiritual path.

Meditation: Awakening to Truth

You may have been introduced to mindfulness training—without any reference to Buddhism—in a health clinic, in psychotherapy, or in a corporate seminar. Simply realizing that we can purposely direct our attention can be a radical and wonderful discovery. Even when we are just beginning to practice, we can experience the calm centeredness that arises from waking up from thoughts and resting with the breath, and the lucidity of becoming mindful of our moment-to-moment experience.

Many people first come to my Wednesday night meditation class primarily for health reasons or for stress relief. They are sometimes surprised by what they discover.

Terrance was a superior court judge in Washington, D.C. He came up to me after his first class to talk about his work. He often felt overwhelmed by the crowded courtrooms and the sheer magnitude of suffering he observed day after day. What could he do, he asked me, to find more breathing space in the midst of it all? Taking a cue from his words “breathing space,” I suggested a daily meditation practice that used the breath as an anchor. Then, even at work he would be able to pause and quickly establish a connection with his breath, and find some inner clarity and ease.

Terrance was disciplined. He joined a course we taught for a group of other court justices and practiced half an hour a day on his own. At the end of the course, he sought me out again. “It works, Tara,” he said with a smile, “but not quite the way I expected. I'm calmer for sure. But there is something else. Each person who approaches the bench these days has become a real person, someone who deserves my respect. More than that … each is really ‘not other' than me, in some most basic way. I've tapped into a love and a consciousness I'd understood intellectually but never experienced directly.”

The popular benefits attributed to meditation are concrete, quantifiable, and immensely valuable, but the Buddha had a more fundamental intent: Cultivating a relaxed and attentive mind allows us to see directly into the truth of who we are. Terrance was beginning to experience moments when compassion and connection weren't just ideas, but lived experiences.

Ethics: Living Aligned with Truth

The Tibetans teach that we should allow our minds to be as vast as the sky and our daily conduct to be as fine as a grain of sand. This reflects a basic truth: How we live today—the ways we treat others, the energy behind our words, our habits of relating to the earth—affects our own consciousness and ripples out into the world around us. In each moment, what we choose to say and do plants the seed of our future. Remembering this truth and allowing it to guide our actions is essential in opening the heart and mind to the inner refuge of truth.

Like many other spiritual leaders, the Buddha taught a fundamental reverence for life and a commitment not to cause harm. His precepts guide us to refrain from killing, stealing, lying, abusing intoxicants, or causing harm through sexual activity. They also call us to compassionate living: to cherish and preserve life, to be generous, to speak the truth with kindness, to take care of our bodies and minds and bring consciousness and respect to relationships.

I've seen how these teachings can provide people with a lifeboat in rough waters. One of my meditation students, Manny, was a project leader for an innovative business that had created a number of successful software applications. Much of the creative brilliance behind these developments had sprung from a young man and woman on his team. Yet in his meetings with company executives, he never mentioned their work. One day, as Manny reflected on his actions, he felt a jolt of self-disgust: It was stealing. He had taken for himself the credit that was due to others. It was also lying: He had not acknowledged what was true. From then on, he made a point of honoring the contributions of his team, both to the team members themselves and to his superiors. He noticed that his mind became clearer and he felt more at ease with himself.

A friend jokes that we can't expect to spend the day lying, stealing, and beating people, and then come home for a nice peaceful meditation sitting. Acting in ways that are violent or manipulative directly affects our nervous system and mood. In the same way, living ethically fosters a happy, contented heart. Even if we're not fully in touch with our own wisdom and compassion, when we make a conscious effort to act in ways that are helpful and kind, there is an “outside-in” effect. We become more energetically balanced and aligned, and more at peace with how we are relating to the life within and around us.

Yet having a commitment to nonharming does not mean that we should beat ourselves up when we've said something hurtful or had too many beers. Rather, our commitment can be a powerful incentive to pause and notice what is going on in the midst of activity. As we learn to deepen our attention in this way, we become increasingly connected with our inherent reverence for life.

Teachings on Truth: Accepting What Is Real

About twenty years ago, a close friend and I drove to southern Virginia to attend a retreat led by Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. At the closing ceremony, he asked us to choose a partner—I turned to face my friend—and bow to each other. He then instructed us to hug our partner while taking three conscious and full in-breaths and out-breaths. With the first breath, he said to reflect: “I'm going to die”; with the second, “You're going to die”; and with the third, “And we have just these precious moments.” After slowly releasing our embrace, my friend and I looked at each other through our tears. Thich Nhat Hanh had, in a beautiful way, turned us toward the refuge of truth.

Facing and accepting the realities of our existence is not easy. We are deeply conditioned to try to hold on to whatever we hope will give us security and pleasure, and to protect ourselves from pain. Holding on locked my friend Paul into two decades of conflict in his marriage. An extrovert who thrived on being with others, Paul felt shut out by his wife, Karen. “She would rather be alone with our cat and her poetry,” he'd complain, “than spend time with me.” Hurt and angry, he'd accuse her of abandoning him emotionally, of not caring about him, of not showing up. Her response would be to withdraw even more. Then, during a weekend when Karen was away visiting their adult daughter, he had a stunning realization. “Week after week, year after year, I was assuming she
should
be different, that our relationship should be different … And Karen is the way she is.” He realized he and Karen would never achieve his dream of intimacy. The more he directly opened to his own hurt and loneliness, the more he began to accept Karen as she was. Their relationship relaxed and became more fundamentally honest, respectful, and caring. “When we came to the decision that we wanted to separate, it was not because we were at war,” Paul told me. “It was because we were being honest … accepting how it was.” Then he added wistfully, “It's sad how we covered over our love through all those years of wanting each other to be different.”

When we walk through the gateway of truth, we start by recognizing what's real and intending to accept it. Accepting what is does not mean passive resignation; it is a courageous engagement with the reality of our experience. We might not like what we discover, but we can hold it in compassionate presence. The more we rest in this presence, the more lucid our attention becomes. We see what lies beyond the changing play of thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and discover our inner refuge—the wakeful openness and tenderness that beholds and enfolds all experience.

The Gateway of Love

Participating in conscious community is a beautiful outer refuge, and it offers a powerful way to enter true refuge. In the Buddhist tradition, the word “sangha” originally referred to the congregation of monks and nuns who followed the way of the Buddha. Today in the West, the concept of sangha has expanded. The key element that distinguishes a sangha or conscious community from other social organizations is the commitment to a particular and shared set of values and to shared practices or rituals that serve spiritual awakening. Some of the best-known sanghas in our culture are twelve-step groups, communities whose members help each other stay free from addictive behaviors and transform their lives for the better.

All religions and faith groups have their forms of spiritual community, but you do not need any formal affiliation to experience this kind of belonging. Our meditation community includes people from many traditions, as well as those who are determinedly secular. Within the larger community, participants have started more than twenty-five smaller groups, called “kalyana mitta,” or spiritual friends groups, which explore how to bring the teachings alive in daily life. These groups are open to anyone who is interested. Some members also join affinity groups for particular populations—teens and young adults; people of color; those struggling with addiction; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning members.