Tranquility? What is that?

In our investigation of the Seven Factors of Awakening, we arrive at Tranquility. Ahhhh. The word has such a sense of relief/release/relaxation, doesn’t it? It’s as if you’re sitting by the edge of a peaceful lake, enjoying sun gently warming your skin and being lulled by the sound of softly lapping water.

Taking this imaginary experience a little further, perhaps you swim in a leisurely way to the middle of the lake and lie on your back. Feel the buoyant support of the water as it ripples. Gaze up at the sky and rest in the beauty of the clouds drifting by.

Ahhhh. This is a lovely imagination meditation to remind ourselves of what’s possible in our experience. But if we think the only way to experience tranquility is to go on a vacation, either physically or in our imagination, then we are chasing after peace and calm, and making an enemy of all else that arises in our experience. Chasing after such tranquility is actually a hindrance to awakening and a cause of suffering. Bummer, because I really liked just relaxing on the lake. Didn’t you? 

Fortunately, we can still relax on the lake any time we want and consider it a valuable experience. It trains us to notice the qualities of tranquility that we can cultivate in our lives.

When we were on that lake, remember that sense of buoyancy? At any moment in our lives, regardless of what is going on, there is that same buoyant quality of support. We’re often just too entangled in thought to notice it. We can experience it if we have cultivated awareness, compassion, energy and joy. We don’t need to tense up to hold everything in our lives together. Whether this sense of buoyancy comes naturally or not, we can let go of any habit of scolding ourselves for not seeing it, or blaming the world for not providing it.

Science supports our exploration
The regular practice of meditation cultivates a spaciousness that allows for a deepening understanding of the permeability of all matter. Our habit of mind is to experience objects as solid. But are they? In fact they are not. Tell that to my toe that just stubbed itself on a stone, right? But we know that all existence is made up of molecules and that every molecule is mostly space. Why does this matter?

Even though in practical ways, we experience matter as solid — very important so that we take responsibility when, for example, we are driving a heavy vehicle around fragile pedestrians — at a more intuitive level, we can also recognize the impermanent, fleeting and ultimately permeable nature of being.

Making room for both of these ways of seeing is important. Life is not either/or. It is both/and. Yes, objects are solid. And yet they are not. This is a challenging mental leap if we were raised in an either/or world, which most of us were. When we were born, that solid seeming world was the knowledge we lacked, and we needed to learn it to get around. It would be careless to raise a child without that understanding. But can we leave room also for the more permeable perceptions? Can we release into the all-one-ness of being?

Thus begins our exploration of tranquility which we will continue in the next dharma post. For now, see if you can pay attention especially to tranquil moments during the week. Then, instead of grasping and clinging to them, notice the qualities of those moments. What do they feel like? Is it just the absence of aggravation? Or is there something there? What is that quality? What is this tranquility? How does it feel?

In your meditation, when thoughts arise, you might recognize them as permeable, transparent, mist. I find those three words help me to understand the nature of thoughts and emotions that arise in my experience, and this noting allows them to dissipate and disappear.

Leaving the gently lapping shores of tranquility in their wake.