Brahmaviharas and Tonglen – Deconstructing Yourself
Streamed live on Feb 6, 2025
Guided Nondual Meditation by Michael Taft
Introduction
Welcome, I’m Michael Taft. We’re going to do an hour-long guided meditation. I invite you to check some stuff out in your experience, and you’re welcome to do that, and you’re also welcome to not—if you want to do your own meditation, you want to build some kind of astral temple in your mind while you’re sitting—great—do that. Whatever you want. You can even do halfway, like go with me halfway, and then, like, okay, whatever he’s doing next I’m not into it, and then you go off into your own meditation. That’s fine. Just come on Thursday night and sit with the group. There’s a real power to sitting together. So it’s great to have you here.
Meditation
Okay, so from here, let’s do some mantra. We’re going to go back to our standard favorite, om mani padme hum. Remember that I chant at a certain pitch, but you chant at whatever pitch you want, that suits your voice, and we’ll all breathe at different times so that the chant just keeps going. We’re going to do it for a little while, maybe three or four minutes, and while you’re doing it, since this is the mantra of great compassion, just feel your heart. Feel your heart center, feel your heart there, maybe even feel it opening, softening, whatever. But notice that sense of kindness, caring, joy, and so on.
[chanting] om mani padme hum
Good. Now, just feeling that energy of kindness, love, compassion, openness, joy—even if it’s very tiny, or even if it’s very large. Just feel it, staying nice and open, nice and relaxed, with wide open awareness.
Let’s begin doing some alternate nostril breathing. If you know how to do that, go ahead. If you don’t, follow along with my instructions, which always start out putting your right hand like this, closing your right nostril with your right thumb, Make sure you’re sitting up nice and straight. Breathe in through your left nostril—nice deep breath, close that left nostril with those two fingers. Breathe out the right nostril, nice deep breath in the right nostril. Close it with the thumb, breathe out the left, in the left. Close out the left, breath out the right, in the right. Close out the left, and just keep going with that for a few minutes here. While you’re doing that, if you want to, you can count along with your breathing, using om mani padme hum, and concentrating the energy at your third eye.
So, let’s continue doing this for a little while together. If the counting and mantra is too much, just do the breathing part. This is really balancing the two hemispheres. It’s energizing, but also it provides quite a bit of stabilization and balance. It brings a tremendous amount of balance to the system. It’s also a thought to clean out the energy system. One of the names for this is anulom vilom which is alternate nostril breathing, but the other name for it is nadi shodhana, which means literally cleaning your energy channels. This is one of the few pranayamas that you can just do as much of it as you like.
For now, we begin on a left nostril in-breath, so keep going to your next left nostril out breath, and then bring it to a close. Just sit for a minute in open awareness, relaxed openness. Just feel the tonified system, the fact that you’re more relaxed, more open, but also more balanced and harmonious.
Okay, let’s do some good old school Brahmavihara work now, which means we’re going to begin just generating some metta, some loving kindness. We can do this in a very relaxed, very gentle, very open manner. If you’ve already got a metta practice, then just go ahead and do that. Otherwise, the idea is to bring up images of people, or animal companions, or friends that you care about in your mind. Picture them feeling happy, loving, energized, healthy, thriving—happy in every way. And just feel how good that feels to see them doing so well. Reflect that back to them, wish that for them in whatever way it comes up for you. If you want to use the standard Buddhist phrases, you can say, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from suffering, and so on. But you can actually use whatever language works for you.
We’re not trying to necessarily have an atom bomb of emotion go off. This is just a nice, gentle, sweetness that we’re bringing to our heart. For some reason, for some people, sometimes doing this makes them a little sad. So don’t go in the sad direction, go in the joy, happy, sweet, kindness, direction. Let’s do this together for a few minutes. Basically, you’re just wishing them well—in one way of saying it, praying for them to be happy, and joyful, and peaceful, and healthy, and thriving. And as you’re doing that, you can stay with the same individual, or move to other individuals. Keep it joyous, keep it happy. Feel that glow of kindness filling your heart.
And, to the extent you can, keep your mind from wandering. Instead, stay right with the practice. That will really help it to grow stronger, and deeper, and more loving. Try not to allow yourself to make it into an Olympic sport. This is about joy and kindness, so stay soft, and open. We’re not trying too hard. Again, it’s not about having some kind of major compassionate event or something. You just want that warm glow.
Good. Now, let’s change the mood a little bit, and go more in the direction of compassion. So, instead of seeing them as doing really well necessarily, you might tune into someone you know who’s having a hard time or various people who are having a hard time. You’re wishing them the same thing—you’re wishing them peace, love, kindness, relief, health, end of suffering, and you’re imagining yourself helping. So, moving from metta to karuna—to compassion. Again, don’t let this go in a direction that brings sadness. It’s more about the mood of wanting to help, and sending them help, and being there for them, and being supportive.
I know none of us don’t know anyone who’s having a hard time right now. If you can’t think of anybody, then make somebody up. And notice how that’s just a little bit different of a flavor, but still related. It’s still heart opening, it’s still causing that warm coal to glow in the heart, just with a little bit different tone. Remember, you’re a person, too, so if you want to, beam some compassion at yourself. That’s okay, too. We just did the mantra of great compassion, and this is the compassion practice.
Good. Now let’s switch. We did metta and karuna, now let’s do mudita, which literally means sweetness and is the joy you derive from others’ joy. We did a little bit of that in the metta, but let’s do it really strongly now. You see others very happy, really doing well, getting what they need, getting things that are good for them, doing things that are healthy, and life-affirming, and causing them to thrive. Just feel the joy that that gives you from them doing well.
It’s like the ultimate anti-jealousy—just how beautiful it is to see someone doing really well. Picture that as clearly as you can. It can be a single individual or many different individuals, but see them thriving, and joyous, and smiling, and happy, and energized—bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Doing what they were meant to do, and just notice the tremendous joy that brings. It’s a particular kind of joy, the sort of persnickety Victorian term for it is sympathetic joy, but I like the literal translation—just sweetness. It’s just so sweet. If you have a child, you know what it’s like to see them when they’re super happy. What it makes you feel is better than your own happiness—that’s mudita.
Good. Then, the last of the Brahmaviharas is upekkha, or in Sanskrit, upeksha, so equanimity. But notice, this is not some kind of cold, I don’t careness, which is how some people conceptualize equanimity. Rather, it’s tremendous balance, it’s tremendous poise. Just feeling so openhearted and so light that there’s a kind of tremendous evenness, but it’s very warm. It’s not uncaring in any way. The heart remains wide open. Tremendous balance, evenness, openness.
We did the alternate nostril breathing, which brings a sense of real balance to the organism, and now there’s balance in the mind as well.
Good. Now, from this real balanced equanimity, just set the thinking mind aside entirely, and just open up to spaciousness with tremendous ease. We don’t have to create space, or imagine space, we’re just not using our mind in a narrow manner. Not using our attention in a narrow manner. So it’s just naturally open, it’s just open.
And from this open, sky-like mind, you can do one of two things. Either sit feeling the breath wave come and go in the sky of the mind, and use that as a very, very gentle, very simple focus object. But keeping your attention very broad, and just feeling the breath coming and going in the body. Or, if you want to do something a little more challenging, don’t focus your mind on anything at all. Don’t do anything at all. If you find your mind doing something, or trying to not do, just drop that. Come back to not placing your mind in any way at all, and resting as the awakeness, not the mind at all. Again, if that’s not your cup of tea this evening, then just come back to resting as open awakeness, feeling the breath wave coming and going.
If it feels like the mind is grabbing on to anything, just let go. Don’t grab on to anything at all with the mind. We’re staying bright clear and alert, but unfixated on anything. If it feels like you’re trying at all, that’s a fixation. Just drop that. There’s no trying happening. If it feels like you’re checking to see if you’re doing it right, just drop that. There’s no checking to see if you’re doing it right. If it feels like you’re doing something at all, just drop that. There’s no doing of any kind happening. If you’re fixated on any thought at all, just let it go. Thoughts can be there, but we’re not engaging in any way.
Good. Now, from this place of sky-like openness, tremendous, vast, spacious, boundless, centerless, awakeness, with nobody there, no doing of any kind, nobody trying, nobody imagining anything, let’s do some tonglen practice. So, in tonglen practice, we’re beginning again with just one other individual, and on the in-breath, breathing in all their suffering, all their pain, all their distress, all their trauma, everything into our being.
But, in this case, our being is bodhicitta, Buddha Nature itself, so it can take an infinite amount of that without any trouble. It’s just sucking it in, and then breathing back out to that person, joy, peace, health, relief, inspiration, beauty, love. So again, without anybody there to do anything, just let your own bodhicitta, your own awakening heart-mind, breathe in the suffering, and breathe out the relief. Breathe in the pain and the distress, and breathe out the joy and the kindness. Giving it without reserve, because there’s just no limit.
You can continue working with one individual, or move to several different individuals. Really feeling that you’re liberating all that suffering, all that pain, all that difficulty, all that distress, all that trauma. It vanishes without a trace. And then giving back beauty, joy, kindness, health, inspiration, power, confidence, love.
As our ability to do this sort of warms up, let’s now include everyone else in this room. All the other meditators here. Breathe in all the pain, all the sadness, all the difficulty, all the distress, all the trauma, and then breathe out relief, healing, joy, love, kindness, wisdom. Feel it coming back to you, because you’re in the room, too, so that’s happening for you as well.
Good. Now, since we’re dealing with the Buddha Nature, and there’s no limit, let’s just open the valve all the way. Taking on all the suffering of every sentient being everywhere, and there’s a lot of it my friends, there’s a whole lot of it. And we’re just taking it all in on each in-breath, without reserve, without holding back, and then beaming out from this giant heart-mind of tremendous compassion, tremendous love, tremendous healing, tremendous joy, tremendous wisdom. Giving it everything we’ve got for every being, everywhere in the universe. And, of course, feeling it coming back to us as well.
And since what we’re doing is the activity of the bodhisattva of compassion, while we’re doing this let’s also chant the mantra of Avalokiteshvara, which we were doing before. We’ll just do it a little softer. We’re continuing the tonglen, so we have to leave enough room to breathe in, to breathe in all that suffering.
[chanting] om mani padme hum
Now, just sit as bodhicitta itself, as the heart-mind of tremendous wisdom and love. Just be that, without any thought of any kind.
Okay, let’s end that there. Let’s just see what you all have to say.
Questioner 1: I was having this awesome visual during the mantra of compassion of an infinite space with this little ball at the center. And every time we said om mani padme hum, a pink wave of energy would zoom out, and go to the entirety of the expanse. Then it would happen again and again, with all these pink waves. It was beautiful. That’s it.
Michael: Thank you, thanks for sharing the beautiful vision.
Questioner 2: Hey Michael. So for the doing nothing instruction, is it not possible to do that if you’re sleepy? I felt like I had to try to stay awake, and then I tried to not try staying awake, and then I just started to fall over.
Michael: Yes, it is the one pitfall is that you’re not supposed to be sleepy. So, if you need to keep yourself awake, keep yourself awake, okay. That’s it. It’s got a loophole there for sitting up straight, and staying awake, because otherwise you’re just falling asleep. It’s not really a meditation at that point.
Questioner 2: Yeah, thanks for that.
Questioner 3: I had a thing today that I’ve been having on and off in Ram practice where it’s like my whole energy is just too activated. I don’t know, not too activated, but rather activated. I’m not sure how much to let it go, but I also am sort of trying to cultivate a heart feeling. But I don’t want to be trying to force a heart feeling, and it ends up with a kind of elevated heart rate. I especially notice that if I’m doing tonglen, I’ll be trying to breathe in the suffering and breathe out relief.
Michael: That’s how you do it.
Questioner 3: It’s like power breathing.
Michael: So there’s just a lot of energy. Just go with it. I mean I wouldn’t try to ramp it up, but if it’s there, then that’s what’s there, okay?
Questioner 3: Do you have any tips? I feel like sometimes it gets my mind a little swirly.
Michael: Yeah, this is the interesting thing. In any meditation practice, we’re trying to raise energy, and we’re raising energy in order to cut through the thickets of the mind, or let’s say, our habitual mental patterns. So we raise energy to cut through, but sometimes we raise energy, and the mind just sucks it up and uses it to just be crazy faster, be insane more intensely.
And so, we’ve got to watch out for that, and that’s why, for example, when we’re doing breathing, we have a spot to focus on, we’re using a mantra, because we want to make sure that the energy goes where we want it. Not literally, but in just the sense of, it’s used to cut through.
If you find, instead, that it’s co-opted into the crazy system, and now things are going really fast, you can do this: you just breathe it into your belly. You literally just intend that the energy come into your lower dantian. And, surprisingly, that’s the whole technique: just intend that the energy come down. Most people can do it. That’s the whole instruction, just bring the energy down to here, and usually, you’ll notice that your mind slows down.
Questioner 3: Then you direct it towards whatever. Thank you.
Michael: Just leave it there.
Questioner 3: Thank you.
Michael: Yep, and, in fact, if whenever it’s squirrelly like that, you can just bring your energy down into your dantian.
Questioner 4: Hi Michael. This is my first time at this event, thank you so much. A follow up on this question about sleepiness. During the do nothing meditation I also felt sleepy. My story is that I have a propensity to dissociate, that puts away my mind to avoid internal experience. I’ve experienced this in my solo practice for similar meditations, even when not sleepy. Do you have recommendations for this?
Michael: Can you feel your body?
Questioner 4: Some of it.
Michael: Some of it. If you’re feeling your body, if you can feel your feet, if you can feel yourself on the cushion, and stuff like that, you’re not dissociated. You’re present. You might not be fully feeling everything as much as you’d like, but you’re still there. If you’re having a lot of trouble with dissociation, of course that’s a good thing to do therapy on, but I would say that instead of do nothing practice, you might want to do meditation more like vipassana on body sensation for a long time. Where you’re just staying in the body, staying in the body, staying in the body, staying in the body, in a long-term way, until you really reassociate entirely. Over weeks, months, and years. And then you’ll find when you do this other kind of meditation, it’s not some kind of checking out.
Questioner 4: Yeah, that sounds wonderful, thank you.
Michael: Thanks, anybody else?
Questioner 5: Yeah, questions about not breathing. I noticed myself, when I do tonglen, it’s not like I’m holding my breath, but I’m not breathing for a period of time.
Michael: Okay.
Questioner 5: It seems like the whole thing is like am I breathing?
Michael: It is. Would you say that’s happening when you are distracted and checked out, and not having much of an experience there, or when you’re actually pretty in it?
Questioner 5: It’s when I’m really in. It feels like the process of being connected to a body that is breathing it in is too small. It’s like there’s another thing happening.
Michael: Okay, just let it do that. Sometimes when we’re having a meditation experience, our breathing just sort of suspends. But as long as you’re not doing it on purpose in any way, then no problem. There’s even a word for that—kevala kumbhaka. Your breath just stops, and then it’ll start again. No problem, no breath, no problem.
Questioner 5: Ok, thanks.
Michael: Yep, thanks for asking.
Questioner 6: My question is, how do you see the process of sometimes when you breathe in someone else’s suffering, or your own suffering, but you don’t feel like you have enough joy, happiness, positively, to breathe out in the same length? How do you see that? Because I find myself just wanting to either run away or accept it.
Michael: It’s a good question. I mean, the practice is based on the understanding of the source, equivalent to your Buddha Nature. So your regular body and your regular mind and your ego doesn’t have enough room to take all that in, and doesn’t have enough to give back. But that’s just the regular ego, is just the little sock puppet that’s hanging out over the Buddha Nature, or the source. The source has more than enough room to take on infinite suffering, and more than enough joy, more than enough love, more than enough kindness, more than enough to give back. There’s no limit of any kind. So even if in our own little sock puppet ego we feel like we’re inadequate, we’re setting that aside. Remember, I said set that all aside.
We’re coming now from the giant sky-like awareness, the Buddha Nature itself, which has limitless capacity and limitless resource. And that’s not just some kind of thing we’re imagining. What we’re imagining is that we’re this limited little sock puppet, and when we set that aside, then what’s actually there is this tremendous, limitless, resource that shines forth, okay? So just suspend disbelief.
Questioner 6: Ok, thanks.
Michael: Ok, thank you all for coming out and meditating together. See you next week.
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