This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Light Awareness; Samadhi (10) Easeful Thinking, Easeful Awareness. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Hello and welcome to this half-an-hour meditation. Building on what we’ve been doing earlier this week, I’ve been talking about how we divide ourselves, fragment ourselves, and we lose touch with the whole of who we are by the intensity of the desires we fixate on, or the aversions, or also the ways in which we latch on to identities—”this is who I am.” All these gather strength by the intensity of our thoughts, our ideas, our concepts that we have. It isn’t that thoughts and concepts are wrong to have; what’s important is to be able to see how we become divided, how we become fragmented through them, and lose touch with ourselves.
Sometimes thinking puts us in touch. Sometimes we have thoughts, ideas, concepts of maybe even who we are that help us to step beyond limited concepts into not just an idea of our wholeness, but a way of being in touch, to feel, to sense, so that all our capacities for awareness are in some ways operating at the same time—a whole field of attention.
So, two things. One is that it’s not only important to see how these concepts divide us, but also to start getting a sense of the intensity of their strength, how much clinging or force, pressure, compulsion is behind them. Sometimes this is seen by how the thoughts carry us away into our preoccupations. Maybe we come back to the present, to the breathing, and then see how quickly we get pulled back. Sometimes we get pulled back, we feel the pull even before we’ve returned. Even in the movement of returning, the strength of the thoughts are there.
The thoughts that unite us, that bring us all together, do not have that intensity. They don’t come with compulsion and pressure; they’re not loud. In not being loud, maybe we don’t feel like we should or can or want to give them much attention. But in the practice of meditation, it’s the thoughts that are supportive, that are non-compulsive, that are quiet, that are gentle, that support us here. They say, “Come back,” “Welcome into the fullness of who we are,” “Welcome, be here to sense and feel all of it, open up.” There’s a variety of things we can tell ourselves.
So thoughts can support us to be here and now, and this goes along with what I talked about the first week of light awareness. There can be light thoughts, and then there can be a kind of a light sense of awareness, or awareness that has no weight and is gentle. It can be harder to stay present for because of the strength of other preoccupations, other priorities. But to develop a really healthy form of Samadhi1 has a lot to do with the slow and gradual art of cultivating, developing, staying close to a gentle, soft, light awareness, a light, gentle way of thinking that supports that awareness. “Come back, be here now, let’s welcome the breathing back,” rather than forcefully jerking the mind back to the breath. There can be gentle thoughts and an attitude of, “Let’s invite the breathing back into awareness,” so the mind doesn’t have to move.
I’ll offer you some guidance on this light touch of awareness, this light touch of thinking for this meditation. So, to assume a meditation posture that’s right for you, and right for you so that there is a non-forceful alertness that maybe arises out of the body. Sometimes that is helped by, whatever posture you’re in, to assume that posture with intention, with a sense of knowing, “This is the posture, this is what I’m doing.” A gentle intention, an intention that maybe is infused with self-care, self-regard, wanting to do well for yourself through this meditation.
Then to lower your gaze, and if it can support relaxing further, closing your eyes. And then to see if you can tune, adjust your thinking to have a light, soft touch. Quiet. Maybe the soft, light kind of thinking that conveys a kindness, a friendliness, a care. And giving yourself gentle instructions, so you’re starting to use your thinking in a nice, light, welcoming way. Giving yourself instructions like I often do at the beginning of a sitting: to breathe deeply, relax. Do that for yourself.
Giving yourself instructions is a way in which you begin helping yourself become whole, undivided. Maybe talking to yourself with a tone of voice that is comfortable, settling for your mind and your heart.
And then breathing normally, relaxing on the exhale, maybe with extending the exhale just a little bit longer than usual by letting go, relaxing at the end. And relax into the settling point, the final point of where the last sensation of exhale occurs deep in your body. Follow the exhale to the end, allowing yourself to settle into that end, and allowing the inhale to arise from that grounding point, that settling point. As if breathing, the inhale spreads from this single point where the inhale begins, and with the exhale, there’s a return to that point.
And don’t focus directly or fixedly on this end of the exhale, this settling point, but do be aware of it, kind of with peripheral awareness. So the way of being with this settling place, with breathing deep inside, this grounding place, is a light touch.
And if the mind wanders off in thought, notice how you lose touch with yourself. And then give yourself gentle, calm instructions to welcome back being in touch, being connected. So how you instruct yourself is light and gentle and kind, slowly getting used to a light, kind awareness that helps you stay in touch with the body, your experience.
As we continue, see if you can find just the right balance of not trying too hard to be present and not wandering away from the present. Maybe a little bit like being at the center point of a seesaw, keeping it balanced. Relaxed attention on breathing, attentive not to wander away.
And then as we come to the end of this meditation, to see if there can be a balance, maybe balancing in the middle of a seesaw between being grounded in yourself and turning your awareness out into the world, to the people that you’ll encounter today, people known and people not known, strangers. And to imagine staying at ease and balanced, present, connected to yourself while being aware of the world of others.
Inviting a kind attention, inviting goodwill for both yourself and for others. Standing here, balanced between these two, with goodwill flowing in all directions.
May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings be free.
And may it be that how I’m aware as I go about my day might contribute to greater happiness and peace in this world. May all beings be well.
Thank you.
So hello and welcome to this, now 10th talk on Samadhi1, putting down the foundations for what is needed to really have a useful form of concentration in meditation. We’re learning how our minds work, how our thoughts, our attention works, so that we can use it in a useful way. To not understand ourselves and try to get concentrated sometimes doesn’t work, or we override ourselves, or the concentration comes with a lot of tension and force.
One of the things I’ve been emphasizing this week is that the ways in which our thinking, the ways in which desire and aversions, and the ways in which identity—how we identify ourselves—can be divisive in ourselves. How it can create divisions, fragmentations, how it contributes to not being fully in touch with ourselves, sometimes even a disassociation or disconnection from ourselves. And to try to develop Samadhi while being disconnected is going to be much harder. It’s through being connected. Samadhi is a gathering together, it’s a collectedness, everything collected together, a collectedness of mind and body. And so we have to kind of understand how we do the opposite, and then to understand how to use the mind, how to use the attention so that that attention doesn’t further the division.
That attention actually begins to heal it. So to use attention in a like a laser focus, in a fixed way, in a determined way to blast through something or blast into concentration, that actually creates more separation. And so there’s some kind of way of being relaxed and soft and welcoming, to have an attention that begins opening to the whole, not forcing ourselves into the present.
I want to use an analogy that maybe points to something important. If I find myself maybe afraid, and the manifestation of that fear is that I hold my hands in tight fists. And I’ve just been doing that for so long, I never really open my hand. If I’m going to pick something up, I have to hold my two fists together and grab it somehow. And so all I’m thinking about is, all I know about my hand is it’s fisted. And I start being concerned about, “Am I fisted in the proper way?” and, “What’s the right way to have a fist? Is my thumb supposed to be inside or outside? What do people think of my fist? Do I have a nice, handsome fist, or is this something that’s embarrassing as a human being to have this kind of fist? Maybe I’m supposed to tighten up harder with a fist, or maybe I’m supposed to be a Buddhist, so a good Buddhist has a relaxed fist, an easeful fist.” All I know is “fist.”
And then I come across some wise teacher who tells me, “Gil, you might try relaxing your hand fully. Pry your fingers apart and let your full hand relax.” And then I get disoriented. “But, but, but I’m my fist, that’s who I am! What am I going to do? There’s no fist anymore! The fist disappeared! What did you do to my fist?” And eventually, I discover, “Oh, how nice it is.” The absence of the fist is really nice. I haven’t betrayed the fist by relaxing; I’ve just stopped doing something unnecessary. And if I ever need to fist again, I can do it. I know how. But it’s so nice not to have it.
So in the same way, the ways in which we cling, the compulsions of the mind, the pressure and tightness and the force behind which we think, want, have aversion—it’s possible to feel the sensations of that. And sometimes when people have a sense of “I am,” just that “I-am-ness,” what they’re identifying is that fistedness of the mind, the tightness in the center of our thinking. And thinking does not have to have any pressure associated with it. Thinking does not have to have any tightness or, thinking doesn’t have to be fisted in any kind of way. But if that’s what we’re used to, and that’s what we think thinking is, it’s inconceivable that we would relax that thinking muscle. And we feel like we have to go along with it, and “this is who I am,” after all.
And so the very act of identification, holding on tightly to identities—it isn’t the identity that’s necessarily the problem, it’s how we hold on to it, the compulsion, the pressure behind it. The thinking isn’t necessarily a problem, it’s the compulsion and pressure, the clinging, the force behind it. And so what we can start looking at is the underlying tension that’s there in thinking and in identifying ourselves, having an identification with anything at all. And it’s possible to loosen the fist, to relax. And something disappears. When, just like the fist disappears, something disappears in the mind. And if we think that what disappears is who we are, it can be disorienting. But what disappears is the tension, is the pressure.
That same thing can exist with how people focus their attention in meditation. They associate meditation with having this tension or the pressure that’s in focusing, focusing on the breath. “I know I’m focusing on the breath because there’s a kind of a gathering and tightening in the mind.” It’s like this little strain of looking at my breathing or some part of my body. And for some people, that strain is what keeps them present, because otherwise the tendency of the mind to wander off is so strong.
What we’re trying to do here is to find some other way of being present that does not involve force, does not involve any kind of strain. And so we have to let go of the strain and realize it’s still possible to be focused, but in a different way. And that’s a light way, a soft way, an open way. And so the dedication, the persistence is in staying open and relaxed, staying available and relaxed, staying intimate and relaxed. And so we work hard at being relaxed, we work hard at being at ease. And of course, you can’t work hard that way and strain. The “working hard” is just kind of like a repetition, coming back, staying close to it in a gentle, kind, supportive way.
And so we are learning a whole different way of using attention, a whole different way of thinking, and a whole different way of maybe even taking some aspects of who we are and identifying, “this is who I am.” And this applies also to how we identify other people. There can be force and compulsion in identifying other people as being somehow wrong. “I’m right,” that’s an identification, and there can be a lot of strength behind that. “They’re wrong.” It’s the force and the compulsion that gets created. It’s not in the being right and wrong, it’s the reification, the solidification, the separation, the prioritization of a certain way of being, prioritization of a fisted mind, where we lose something in that process. A fisted hand loses the open hand. The fisted mind loses an open mind. A tense mind loses an easeful mind.
And so to begin experimenting in daily life, in meditation, with seeing, can you find a way to think, talk to yourself, have thoughts that are light, easeful? That are thoughts about staying present, giving yourself gentle instructions? Not that you’re going to do this forever, but if you’re honest, you might find that sometimes that’s the better alternative to how the mind’s wandering off into different kinds of thoughts by itself, thoughts that maybe are not so useful. And it’s a beginning of training, preparing the mind, learning how to be friendly, how to be easeful, how to be light, how to be a very comforting mind, a mind that you want to stay close to, by beginning to talk to yourself in nice ways, in gentle ways. It’s not so much what you say to yourself, but how you say it.
And that can begin translating to having a form of present moment awareness that is compelling because it’s not compulsive. It’s compelling because it feels so nice. “Of course I want to be present, of course I want to have an open hand when it feels so nice to have it open. Of course I want to open to the sensations of my body, of course I want to open to the feelings I have.” Not because the body and feelings are necessarily comfortable or pleasant, but it’s so nice to have that awareness that’s light and useful and available.
And so in a sense, if you want to identify yourself with something, don’t identify yourself with anything that has pressure or tension in it. Identify with the awareness, the thinking which has none, that’s easeful and light, pleasant, and maybe friendly.
So I hope that what I’m saying makes enough sense for you to experiment with this and to be patient as we move slowly into this world of Samadhi. Where we’re going, as I’ve said earlier here, it’s kind of like a sacred temple. And it’s kind of amazing, the capacities of the mind. We should have a lot of respect for the higher reaches of Samadhi; they are astounding. But we want to really create the good foundation for it, and that’s what I’m hoping we’re doing. And with the instructions for today, I offer you those for this weekend: that you find a nice, easeful way of thinking and find a way of meditation, a nice, easeful way of giving yourself instructions so that you can ease yourself into a nice, comfortable, relaxed awareness that is able to stay, welcoming the present moment. Thank you.