Talk – Kynan Tan Meditation

A Grain of Salt in the Ganges

The Buddha asked his monks: What happens when you drop a spoonful of salt into a glass of water? It turns undrinkable. How about the same spoonful into the Ganges? You can’t taste the salt at all.

This is something awareness can do. Open it wide enough and there is room for anything: the leftover charge of the day, an emotion you’d rather not feel, a discomfort you’ve been carrying since this morning. Nothing has to be solved. Held in a space this big, the feeling diffuses and shifts on its own. Awareness itself does the holding, with warmth and tenderness.

Begin with sound. Listen for the most distant noise, then notice the field that holds it — open, roomy, extending in every direction. Let the body appear inside that field. Then gently let whatever you are feeling come forward to be met.

Stay with it, and the feeling loosens. Where you thought there was a solid thing — sadness, or fear — you find movement, a shifting texture. Look for the one who is feeling it, and that too can’t quite be found.

What’s left is spacious knowing. Let the feeling move through it like a ripple through water.

Attuning to Activation

It’s late, you’re winding down, and a notification arrives on your phone. Nothing serious. But there’s a flicker of irritation, a small charge moving through the body against the quiet you were just resting in.

The nervous system is always moving like this — across a spectrum of activation and rest, energy and ease. All of it is good. The charge that sets a boundary, the rest that restores, even the freeze that was once trying to keep you safe: each has its place, just as every part of the mind does. When nothing blocks the way, the system regulates itself. It rises into activation and on its own it settles again.

In this practice we bring a little activation in on purpose, in order to watch it shift and settle. Swing the arms for a minute, then stop. Feel the warmth, the quickened heart, the breath. Notice what happens as you pause and get out of the way.

Then bring something to mind — something small and irritating, an email you didn’t want, whatever brought a bit of feeling. Hold it in whole body awareness and tune into how it feels for you. Stay with the heart, the breath, the charge, with no need to change a thing.

Stay with it, and it moves on its own.

Opening to Uncertainty

I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

— Dune, Frank Herbert

Life is uncertain. There are things we can’t know, things we can’t control — the body ageing, the world shifting through change with no clear path ahead.

Begin by settling. Ease in, collect the mind, find an anchor that feels stable and grounding. Then open to the whole body and let the mind rest into it. Notice the felt sense — the overall tonality of this space, vague and murky, more than words.

Now bring to mind something uncertain: a situation, an area of life where there’s turbulence, unknowns, something out of your hands. Small or large, whatever feels alive. Doing this on purpose lets you meet it on your own terms. Let the fear, the worry, the concern arise, and find where it lives in the body.

Open, soften, allow. Don’t brace against the feeling — go towards it. Every cell of your body dilating to accommodate this texture of experience. Let it move through you, shifting and changing, a trickle from a deep well.

Let it fully envelop you, and you’ll emerge on the other side. What remains is the one who can hold all of it. Untouched. Whole. Nothing missing.

How do you protect me?

In a moment of reactivity, there’s a part of you that jumps into the driver’s seat. It stresses you out with anxiety, defends you with anger, or entices you to reach for that coping strategy. It’s so sure it has an important job to do, trying so hard to protect you. However, there’s a cost to that strategy.

Most of meditation invites us to see through and deconstruct. Instead we let the part stay solid, and turn towards it with loving attunement — the way you might turn towards someone who’s been carrying something heavy by themselves, weary and alone.

First ground into the weight of the body as a steady anchor that you can return to. Bring the part to mind. See it as a part of you, not the whole of you. Notice its cost. Then, rather than trying to change it, sense how it’s been trying to help.

Ask how it feels. Let it answer — in sensation, in an image, in words. Ask how it protects you. Acknowledge the effort: “I see this is how you protect me.” Then offer your thanks.

Met like this, a part will often soften on its own. As it settles back, you are more than the part — you’re the awareness holding it.

Presence and Buddha Nature (talk)

Video recording of a Dharma Talk from Day of Practice (14:10)

Audio only:

This is an excerpt from a talk at the Day of Practice. I offer some thoughts on Presence, Buddha Nature, and Awakening. For me, I got into meditation to experience benefits such as relaxing, focusing, and improving my mental health. While these did come, the biggest shifts occurred when the practice opened to something more profound. Here I offer a way of thinking about what we are doing in meditation and where the path leads — towards recognising the interconnectedness and relatedness of all things, and to understanding ourselves as an integral part of the whole.

I’m currently available to meet one-on-one with new students.