Meditation 1: Becoming Receptive to Experience
Meditation 1: Becoming Receptive to Experience
In this meditation, we're going to pick up a theme that is not directly related to ethics but is very important to the development of ethics, which is a sensitization towards what's happening in your experience.
We're going to pay attention to little things arising in your experience, take note of them, and also develop a sense of not just noticing, but a sense of softening towards what is occurring in your experience.
The posture
Let's get into a comfortable position, making sure that this posture is intentional. This is different from simply sitting in a chair, on the floor, on your cushion, or meditation stool. This particular way of sitting sends a message to keep alert and awake and aware, to be receptive to experience... particularly in an ethical sense of being receptive to experience and what is being given to us in that experience. We need to have this uprightness and alertness: a sense of being open to what is occurring in experience.
Opening to what is here
Before we even begin the normal aspects of meditation practice we might just be open to what is arising right here, right now for us. It could be thoughts but more often than not it's just small sensations in the body. Noticing things that we are not usually receptive to. That might just be the feeling of your buttocks on your seat. It may be the feeling of your legs or your feet on the floor.
As we sit here just being open to our experience, we might notice the warmth or coolness on exposed skin, usually the hands or face. We're not trying to generate these experiences; we're just noticing them, opening to them, being aware of them. And that awareness is also a receptivity.
We might notice the touch of clothing on our bodies, something that's occurring all the time, just as many of these other things are. We often sit on a seat but don't feel our buttocks on the seat. Unless we feel really cold or really hot, we're not aware of the air touching the skin.
How often we're passing through daily life, almost immune to the little things that tell us quite a lot. Our receptivity has to be engaged in order for us to comprehend what is happening in that context.
This may feel very simple. And some of you have done these meditations before. This might sound like a tick list we go through: the feet, the buttocks, a touch of clothing, a feeling of the air on the skin. But it is not simply a tick list. Open up to it. Really be aware and have a sense of what is coming to you at this moment.
And, OK, this is not ethical in the sense of "I'm having to make a choice about what to do". But sometimes ethical situations involve us not having to do anything and just be with what is happening. We could think of it as a training of just being with the experience without having to intervene. Sometimes we might want to intervene if we're uncomfortable on our chair and it becomes painful. You have to make a choice, often, of what to do.
So think of this receptivity practice as a way of opening to experience and seeing where we just let be and, at other times, where we have to make a judgment.
And yet, this is so simple: just dwelling in this awareness, just being this body mind, sitting here at this moment, receptive to what is going on.
It is highly, highly important to have this stillness and receptivity in order that in ordinary life we are able to make clearer judgments about whether we should intervene, act, or not act. What might seem a preliminary, warm-up exercise before the main practice of getting to the breath becomes a very, very important dimension of us opening to experience.
Being aware of our bodies sitting here with all these experiences happening... and we've only touched on a few of them.
Bringing a gentle focus to the breath
After a while, we may wish to focus a little more. Again, not intervening, but just being with that coming and going of the breath. This is not just an inert body, this is a living body. And what gives it life is the breath. We're breathing all the time, unnoticed until perhaps you've climbed a hill and you're short of breath. This is when the breath becomes noticeable. Otherwise, we take it for granted.
Think of how we move through life, taking many, many, many things for granted, not being responsive to what is presented to us, what is being given to us in our experience.
And so we notice the sensations of breathing. Every breath comes with a sensation. Every breath is different, just like every context we step into is different. And I notice that. I notice individual sensations within this breath. As my abdomen expands it gives rise to those sensations; my chest expands and contracts, and I notice that. Not intervening at this stage, not trying to change the experience.
In a sense, we're warming up before moving into an engagement with life where we notice more clearly.
Noticing the rise and fall
I will also notice—unbidden, mostly—thoughts, sensations, and experiences which simply arise. Thoughts arise. Feelings arise. Sensations arise. And instead of pushing them away, we can notice those. This is all part of the tapestry that we call experience. Sometimes it's giving you information, telling you something about what's going on. A little discomfort, an anxiety may arise. I see it and perhaps move into it just a little more closely, with a little more openness, with a little more care or friendliness before returning back to this arising and falling of the breath as a primary focus—it could be anywhere else in the body but mostly it's usually the breath.
As much as we can, we are increasing our receptivity in this process. We're not just trying to hold onto the breath, desperately clinging to it, sometimes judging—"Am I doing this right? Am I doing this wrong?"—but just being there for it. And sometimes when we move through the ordinary world, our everyday world, sometimes we have to stop and take account of where we are, and read the situation very carefully. We notice what is required and instead of reacting, we respond.
This is all part of the training you may be very familiar with. We can turn this training over and see how it's related to the development of an ethical awareness by stilling, steadying, and creating an awareness which is receptive and responsive.
Bringing receptivity into your life
When you're ready, you can open your eyes, bring yourself back into the room, and become aware of your surroundings.
Download the audio
If you wish to download the audio for this guided meditation separately, you can do so here.