Mindfulness as Delight in All Experiences
The stillness and inner silence of meditation is designed to be deeply restful, nourishing, and restorative. The sense throughout the Buddha's discourses is that meditation is not only meant to be not a chore, but that it is delightful in a way that many other practices are not. Remember that the Buddha came from a background in painful asceticism, and before that practiced disembodied states, and before that was addicted to sensual stimulation like everyone else. He had experience in all the Main ways we try to satisfy, avoid, or conquer the obsessive mind. None of them worked, and the revolutionary thing he figured out was that embodied stillness was both delightful AND insightful.
Most of us are so mentally wounded that meditation feels like a chore, or a difficult discipline to master. I think for most of our minds, both can be true. But I want to keep leaning into the original invitation as we read in the courses: "a pleasant abiding in the here and now."
How might we go about the training in meditative stillness if we were committed to it being delightful as often as possible? I'll reflect tonight on the training in concentration and mindfulness, and how we might engage with that training in a way that is productive of ease and nourishment right away, not just as a someday fruition.
(That was the initial direction, but we ended up talking more about the vipassanā & mindfulness side of delight—delighting in all states as they arise. Included discussion of mettā and benevolence toward all states and people at the end.)
