I delivered this meditation to my sangha on February 9, 2026. There were several people that found benefit in it. Perhaps others will too. A deep bow of appreciation to Knoxville Sangha for giving me a place to share my dharma practice and who are incredibly supportive in this pursuit - for myself and others. I have left my "stage directions" in to show a little of the pacing that was used and the places where space was given for contemplation. This is as written, not as delivered. I tend to adlib a little here and there usually, but it's very close to what was given to the group.
Let’s start by setting in. If you like try taking a few deeper breaths. Try this. Breathing in for a count of 4, holding for a count of 4, breathing out for a count of 4, holding for a count of 4 and then repeating. This is box breathing and is known by many to help calm by activating the parasympathetic nervous system. It’s a code that your body understands. It tells your body that everything is OK. Nothing to worry about. Lets do this for the next minute or so. So maybe 2 or 3 times at your own pace.
Bring your attention to your body. Adjust your posture so that you are sitting in an alert and upright position. Find that balance where you can relax your core muscles as much as possible and simply use your bones to hold you up. Sway from side to side and front to back slowly until you hit the right spot where it takes little to no effort to keep your posture upright and alert. Throughout the meditation if your attention seems to drift, check back in with your posture. You may have started to slump a bit or are holding to rigidly. Simply adjusting back to this balanced position can bring your awareness back into the practice.
Let’s do a couple more rounds of box breathing and as we do this leave EVERYTHING at the door. Leave the days events, leave the to-do list, leave the planning and remembering at the door. You can pick them back up, if you still want to, when we’re done this evening.
Also leave any expectation of gaining anything from this practice at the door. It’s not that you shouldn’t have a goal with your practice it’s that the practice doesn’t need a goal. The practice is just watching what happens while we sit. Off the cushion you may have something you want from this but once you sit, you’re just sitting. Just sitting with what comes up. Leave your expectations at the door.
Silence - Medium.
The first noble truth is that life is unsatisfactory. That doesn’t mean every moment sucks. It just means that our typical responses are that we want unpleasant things to end and we want pleasant things to go on and we don’t really have complete control over things. So, we grasp at, cling to this desire for things to be a certain way. It’s that clinging that creates suffering. That’s the second noble truth.
We have to let go of everything, eventually. We left everything at the door tonight. We can do this. We let go of small things all the time. It’s harder but we let go of big things frequently too. It’s not the letting go that’s hard it’s the clinging that causes dissatisfaction. It’s the desire to hold on to things that causes pain. AND saps our appreciation and enjoyment of what’s unfolding.
In our practice we let thoughts and feelings go. Thoughts and feelings arise. We note them. We let them go and we come back to presence. It’s practice for being in every moment. On the cushion we just slow it down so we can master the skills to use off the cushion.
For the next few minutes simply practice letting go. Whatever comes up, note it, and let it go. Your house is open to what ever comes in, just don’t invite it to stay for tea. When you realize you’ve held on to something, give it a respectful bow and let it go.
Silence - Long.
Depending on many factors you may have had many guests showing up or maybe just a few. One characteristic that all those things likely have in common is that they didn’t stay too long. Especially if you were not holding on to them.
You may have noticed that as one thought was let go another unfolded in its place. This is how every moment unfolds. Every moment unfolds as the previous moment disappears. In fact, no two moments can exist together. This seems like common sense but we often create suffering for ourselves by trying to hold onto one moment when we are already in another.
Let’s take a minute to see if you can hold onto a moment and make it solid, something graspable.
Silence - Short.
How’s that going for you? Have you caught a moment yet? Maybe if we try smaller increments. Just a second or two. No. That’s already passed by the time we reach out for it. OK. Just a millisecond. No that’s already gone too. You can keep splitting the distance, smaller and smaller, but you’ll never find a solid moment. What about bigger increments? A hour, a day, a lifetime, an eon. No, those too just keep unfolding and renewing. Ungraspable.
You might as well get used to the idea that moments are not a thing to grasp but an event to experience. They’ll never be solid. Never have been. Never will be. So what is it that we’re trying to hold onto? What is it that can cause us so much stress when try to hold onto it? Why do we stress so much over something that we can’t even say it exists?
There is just becoming. One moment becomes the next. A constant unfolding of one into another. The same is true of all things, including what we think of as ourselves.
Silence - Short.
We exist in the energy of becoming. Like moments we are constantly unfolding ourselves. As the saying goes, the same person can’t step into the same river twice. What we think of as a solid self is just clinging to memories of past moments or wishes for future moments. As we’ve already seen, those aren’t graspable. Could what we call self be as flowing, ever renewing, as moments? Could our self just be the energy of becoming?
Let’s sit with this for a while and try not to think about it but simply be present with the energy of becoming that’s constantly unfolding, and renewing. We’ve established that there’s nothing solid to hold onto. That trying to creates dissatisfaction - suffering. Let’s take the next few minutes to hold onto what we can grasp - the present, the now. Simply sit with the energy of becoming that is ceaselessly unfolding a new moment, a new self. Allow whatever is unfolding within you to unfold as it is. Take as your object of awareness this energy of becoming that is the present.
Silence - Long.
In the relative sense you are you, the floor is solid, tasks need to be completed, time travels in a linear path. Maybe through tonight’s practice you’ve seen a glimpse of the absolute perspective. The absolute shows us that all things are part of the universal energy of becoming. Everything is constantly in a new state of becoming. The tree across the road, the sun, your car, a pebble in a stream - everything is part of this. There is no difference between objects - including ourselves. We are nothing more than this universal energy. Which means, we, are everything. We are both singular, the relative perspective, and universal, the absolute perspective.
Can you just sit with this unfolding? Just the present. Just the now. Whatever is unfolding simply allow it to. We’ve know that there’s nothing solid to hold onto anyway, so just let things unfold. Think of self, and moments, and objects, and others as events to be experienced, appreciated, not as something to cling to. Leave everything at the door.
Silence - Long.
The relative and the absolute are not 2 different things. They are the same things viewed from different points. The heart sutra tells us that form and formlessness are the same. It tells us the relative and the absolute are not different states.
This practice shouldn’t diminish any experience. Try to let it do the opposite! What this means is that everything that unfolds is entirely unique and will never happen again! Examine, explore, with enjoyment and exuberance, every experience. How singularly rare is it to be present.
Silence - Short.
Ring the bell
