SGM Feb 2018 Weekly Message Four: “Peaceful Abiding Into Insight”
PART A: Introduction and Summary of the Month
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PART B: Guided Meditation "Peaceful Abiding into Insight"
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PART A: Introduction and Summary of the Month
Welcome to this week’s edition of Spiritual Growth Monthly. I’m Kevin Schoeninger. It’s great to have you with us here at SGM!
Our “Meditation of the Month” is designed to give you a guided inner practice related to this month’s material. You’ll find that guided practice in “Part B” of the recording above. This month’s meditation is called “Peacefully Abiding into Insight.”
Before we get to get to that, I’d like to take a moment to welcome any new members that have joined us at SGM this month. Let me briefly go over a few details about our site. After that, I’ll briefly summarize this month’s messages. Then, we’ll move into our practice session.
So, again, welcome to all who are have recently joined SGM. If you haven’t done so already, make sure that you visit our “Getting Started with SGM” page for tips on how to get the most out of your membership. Also, in the right upper corner of our website, you’ll find an “Ask the Instructor” link. You can use that to ask me any questions about your personal practice that you do not want to ask in the general Discussion under the Weekly Messages. You’ll also find a Client Support link in that same corner. Use that for any billing, site admin, or ordering questions. We’re here to support you in your personal practice. . .
This month on SGM, we’ve centered our discussion on Sakyong Mipham’s book “Turning The Mind Into An Ally.” In our first Weekly Message, we talked about two fundamental capacities of the mind: mindfulness and awareness. Mindfulness is your ability to place your attention on something and Awareness is your ability to know if your attention is there or somewhere else. Developing these capacities is the foundation of a quiet, focused, compassionate, and enlightened heart-mind.
In Weekly Message Two, we discussed six transcending actions that can take us from the endless chatter and suffering in the “mind of me” to the clear, spacious, luminous heart-mind of enlightenment.
In Weekly Message Three, we explored nine stages on the path of training the mind. We also asked ourselves several questions to gain self-awareness about where we are, where we want to go, and how to get there.
In this week’s “Meditation of the Month,” we’ll practice a combination of the two core practices of Buddhist meditation, Peaceful Abiding, also called “Shamata,” and Insight, also called “Vipassana.” You can integrate the skills from these meditations into any meditation form that you currently practice.
We’ll practice “Peaceful Abiding” first, by focusing on slow, deep, lower abdominal breathing. After relaxing into a meditative state, we’ll practice “Insight” by contemplating an essential aspect of our existence, something that will give you wide-ranging insight into several areas of your life. The object of contemplation in this session will be “impermanence.” You can apply the same technique to contemplate and gain insight into any issue of importance in your life.
So, let’s practice these together now, with a guided meditation inspired by Sakyong Mipham’s book.
PART B: Guided Meditation
“Peaceful Abiding into Insight”
Begin your meditation with good preparation. Find yourself a quiet, private environment, if possible with natural light and good air flow. So you won’t be interrupted, silence your phone and let others know that you are taking some quiet time for the next 20 minutes.
Take your seat—upright and dignified, yet humble before the sacred practice you are about to do.
Sit on the front edge of a chair, couch, or bed, so that your hips are level with or slightly above your knees. If you need back support because your muscles tighten or tire, feel free to move back against a seat back as you need to.
Place your feet parallel to each other with the soles of your feet firmly on the ground. Rest your hands, palms down on your thighs. Relax your shoulders down.
Imagine a string attached to the top of your head drawing your spine gently upright. Relax your forehead and soften the muscles around your eyes. Lower your gaze and close your eyes or keep them just slightly open.
Tuck your chin slightly, lengthening the back of your neck. Touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth or place it just behind your upper teeth along your gum line. Close your mouth so that your lips touch lightly and smile gently.
Internally state what you are doing. For example, “I am meditating now for 20 minutes.” Internally state your intention for meditating such as “I am meditating to quiet and focus my mind, to gain insight, and to better my life and the lives of others.”
Now use that intention to strengthen your attention. Sit upright with a sacred attitude toward the importance of your practice.
Place your attention into your lower abdomen and become aware of your breathing there. Imagine a sphere of energy in your lower abdomen. As you inhale, imagine that sphere expanding and filling up. As you exhale imagine that sphere relaxing inward and emptying out. . .
Allow your breathing to slow down, to become quiet, subtle, and soft. Center your mind into lower abdominal breathing. . .
Whenever you notice that your attention has wandered to any other thought, feeling, image, memory, or sensation, make note of it with a single word such as “thinking,” then return your attention to the breathing sphere in your lower abdomen. . .
Center your mind in your breathing as if nothing else matters at this moment. . .
Whenever you notice that your attention has wandered, make note of what it wandered to, then return your attention to your breathing. . .
As you relax deeper and deeper notice how your breathing becomes slower and quieter, more subtle, and soft. Center your mind in your breath. . .
Now allow your breathing to give you insight into impermanence. Your breathing is an example of how everything in life arises, has a moment of fullness, and recedes. Notice the quality of impermanence in your breathing. It arises, has a moment of fullness, and passes away. . .
There are different time scales to impermanence. There’s the several seconds of a breath. There are the moments of a fleeting thought or the brief moments of a satisfied desire. There are the minutes of a good meal. There are the days, weeks, or months in pursuit of a goal or a life project. There are the moments of a chance meeting. There are the years of a good friendship. There are the years spent together in a marriage or a family. There’s the short span of a life well-lived.
There is the rise and fall of a business, a religion, an organization . . . or a nation. There is the history of a people. There is the history of our planet. All these things too arise and fade. All these things come into being and pass away.
We may try to build things up in our minds or cling to them in our hearts, yet impermanence is the way of life. Everything arises, has a moment of fullness, and passes away.
Knowing impermanence is freedom from hanging on too tightly. . . (Repeat)
Contemplate important aspects of your life in the light of impermanence. . .focus into impermanence until you feel what it means…
Life flows on. It’s ever changing and ever new. Make friends with impermanence. Enjoy each moment for the exquisite combination of circumstances that is only available now.
Enjoy the luminous beauty in each moment, in each person, in each being.
Enjoy the opportunity available only now.
Now, rest your mind again in your lower abdomen. Gather your energy and attention there. . .Feel a peaceful presence in the center of your lower abdomen.
Slowly open your eyes and take in the feeling of the space around you. Feel the peaceful presence in your lower abdomen with your eyes open. . .Smile and take that peaceful presence into your life. . .
Take a moment to write down anything that is important for you to remember from this practice. . .
---End of Practice---
If you have any questions or comments on what we’ve done today, please share them with us in the Comments section below.
I’d like to thank all of you for participating in our practice here at SGM.
For those who like to know what’s ahead next month, we’re going to explore the book, “Rewire Your Brain” by John B. Arden, PhD. Arden offers us the latest cutting-edge research on how to train your brain, make life shifts, and cultivate a brain-healthy lifestyle for optimal well-being.
Until next time,
Keep your mind centered through mindfulness and awareness,
Kevin