This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Global Awareness; Samadhi (31) Basic Elements of Samadhi. 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 good morning. Having been away for a couple of weeks, I overlooked some of the different settings that have to be created for this YouTube broadcast. I’m very happy to be back here and be with you and to continue with this series on samadhi.1 It does feel like a bit of a gap over these two weeks, so it might be good to maybe review or start slowly again this week.
From the very beginning of the samadhi series, I emphasized that the foundation of it is to first discover, first realize or notice how we are. We’re not trying to override ourselves, we’re not trying to bypass ourselves with samadhi, but in a sense, in a certain kind of way, to go through ourselves. And so, to discover what’s here in our body, mind, and heart. But that how we discover it is almost more important than what we discover. The how is to be at ease, to not judge, to not react, to have a lightness in the knowing and the discovery and the checking it out, not trying to make anything happen, but just to see.
The how we are mindful, the how we are focusing is so important for samadhi. If we overlook, if we don’t notice how we are, the how actually can make it either harder or easier to become deeply settled. By discovering how we are, two things are possible. One is that we can bring a sense of calmness, tranquility to how we are, so that the natural process of coming to equilibrium, the natural process of healing, of settling has a chance. Samadhi has a lot to do with allowing a natural process of settling to work its way through us. And the other is that the process of discovery is one of the ways to come into a fullness of being. Samadhi, again, is not a bypass, but you want to really have a fullness, a global awareness, as if all of who we are is included and comes into harmony as we meditate.
So, assume a meditation posture. Either lower your gaze, relaxing your eyes, or closing your eyes and softening the eyes and the eye sockets. And to begin the process of discovery, just notice how you are, whatever way that appears for you. But be careful for how you discover, how you notice. Can you notice in an open way? Can you notice in a way that doesn’t make anything a problem? As if what you notice can benefit from the simplicity of how you know it.
If you kind of step back, in a sense, to have a global awareness of yourself, what do you notice? How are you? And can you be aware of it kindly, gently, openly? The how we’re aware is so important.
Allowing that part of you that is silent, that part of you that’s not involved in a lot of thinking and judging, to be gently aware, globally aware of yourself.
And then, to gently take a few longer and deeper breaths. Not too much, but enough to feel a more full connection to your torso, your rib cage, your belly. And as you exhale, to relax the body, to calm, to let there be a calming effect through your whole system.
Letting your breathing return to normal, and continue on the exhale to soften, relax, while on the inhale you discover, you know more fully something about how you are.
And then again, to have a global awareness of your body in whatever way that’s easy for you. Either your attention can just wander around, or it is as if you have an overview of the whole thing. Including an overview of how your mind is, your thinking mind, as if the thinking mind is part of the whole, not pulled away or separated. And as you exhale, to let there be a calming of the thinking mind.
And then finding your way to the end of your exhale, as if with the exhale you’re being led to the last place deep inside where you feel the exhale. Maybe down to the grounding place, the settling place from where then the inhale begins in the middle of your whole being. Let yourself come to rest at the end of the exhale, maybe even having a moment pause before you breathe in, half a moment.
Allowing the inhale to begin, rise out of the grounding place, the settling place deep within your torso.
At the end of the exhale, a slight pause. And then as you breathe in, feel a growing fullness of your body as you breathe in, as if your whole body is participating in the inhale. And your whole body is relaxing, settling on the exhale.
And then as we come to the end of this sitting, to feel again your global being. Become aware of a global sense of being here in your body and to discover how it’s different now than at the beginning.
And to expand that global sense of attention beyond your body into the room you’re in, the location you’re in, out into the wider world. And in the middle of it all, continue with breathing, as if the breathing begins at that subtle spot, grounding place within, and the world expands from there and returns there on the exhale. And between the exhale and inhale, maybe a momentary stillness. And from that stillness, as the inhale expands, so expanding circles of gazing upon the world kindly. Be still inwardly, still, and gaze upon this world kindly. How we’re aware of the world is as important or more important than what we’re aware of.
To be aware of the world kindly. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may all beings be touched by kindness, and may our kindness spread out into the world.
Hello everyone, and welcome to this ongoing series on samadhi. We had a two-week break as I was mostly at our retreat center in Santa Cruz during this time, and now I’m happy to be back. It’s a bit of a gap, so I’d like to just start over a little bit.
With meditation in general, but also especially with samadhi, there’s something invaluable about always feeling like you’re starting over, so that you’re not measuring or looking for something or trying to tap into something too quickly. So that you sit down to just be with yourself as you are, to discover how you are. Because it’s very easy in a busy life, a full life, a scared life, an angry life, to view ourselves and our world partially, to only be connected to part of who we are. To enter into samadhi, you really want to be connected to all of who we are, because samadhi is a process of unification. It’s a process of gathering ourselves together so that all parts of who we are can be working together in harmony.
In the beginning of this series, I talked about samadhi being a temple, and that we’re entering the temple. We want to bring all of ourselves along, and we want to do it carefully, with respect, with kindness, with a certain kind of humility. We’re not storming a fortress; we’re not storming and aggressively trying to attain something. We’re going with respect and care, and almost as if, Dharma willing, the doors of the temple will open, and we’re bringing all of ourselves along. Just like if you go to a literal sacred place, all of you goes with you. And some sacred places, some places that have tremendous tranquility or peace or a sense of inspiration, to be there can actually awaken our whole body, make it tingle or feel inspired and included, feel the calm of the place.
So this ability to feel our whole body, to calm our whole body, to settle ourselves—the Buddha’s foundational instructions, beginning instructions in mindfulness and in anapanasati,2 mindfulness of breathing, is to breathe mindfully, be present for your breathing, feel the whole body, and then relax the body, calm the body. When we feel the whole body, part of what we’re feeling is the reactivity, the tensions in the body, the holding patterns, the effect of our karmic actions, and the challenging aspects of our body. The Buddha’s recommendation is to bring a sense of calm to it, bring tranquility, hold it, calm it, settle it, like you would if someone is really agitated, dangerously so. You might do things that are calming for them.
So, to discover what’s here, to enter in a calm way into the temple with all of ourselves, and to not be assertive and not be expecting or wanting or pushing to make something happen. We have to be diligent in practicing samadhi, we have to be deliberate. There’s a deliberateness, like, “This is what I’m going to be here for.” It’s not too casual. It’s not like, “Oh, I’ll get around to it. I’ll just sit here and let something kind of settle by itself.” There is a deliberateness: “This is what I’m here to do.”
And then you might begin by not trying too hard. There is a kind of natural settling that some people can experience if we don’t try too much at the beginning, maybe for 5 minutes, 10 minutes. And then as we go further, then the deliberateness comes into play more and more. “Okay, here I am.” If we try too early, we might be stressing ourselves or being tense. Deliberateness is to kind of define the territory, here and now, to be here with this experience now.
And then to steady oneself, to stabilize oneself in a kind of inner stillness. Steady oneself in a kind of still way with the whole, full breath coming and going, coming and going. Not fixating on the breath, but as if the breath is at the center of the global body, the whole body, and we’re resting there with the breath. We’re riding the breath, we’re surfing the breath, we’re coasting on the breath.
So we practice, and one of the things that can begin happening for some people is that you feel the benefit of it in your daily life. To interrupt the normal patterns of thinking and reacting in the mind, the loops we’re in around fear or distress or anger with the world and how it is, takes a break. We can experience ourselves in a different way that’s more calm, more centered, and not so easily caught in preoccupations and needs and all this. And that can make a world of difference.
When the world is in a difficult state, samadhi is one of the great protectors for us. Not to escape it, but to be able to be grounded and centered in ourselves so that we can go into the world in a more effective way. Samadhi is a great support for living our life. And maybe we can live more calmly, less reactively. Maybe from the platform or the vantage point of being settled and unified and calm, we can go into the world more kindly and be more friendly, less contentious, less ready to argue, less ready to see conflict wherever we go. But to see wherever we go an opportunity for connection, an opportunity for the unification, the unity, the gathering together, the connecting more and more fully wherever we go. Whereas samadhi is a unification of body and mind, right speech for the Buddha is speech which unifies people, that overcomes divisiveness between people.
And so we see here this parallel between unifying and harmonizing all of who we are when we sit in meditation—to not be contentious, not be opposed or pushing away any part of ourselves—with how we live in our world. To enter the world to unify, to find connection, to see if we could have a warmhearted connection with someone rather than a contentious one.
So samadhi is a great help for how we live our life. And for samadhi to have its greatest benefit, it helps to be able to practice every day. So I hope that this 7 a.m. sitting here on YouTube allows some of you to have that continuity of every day. And as we do this series on samadhi and we get back in the swing of it, or at least I get back in the swing of it, this might be a good time to start meditating twice a day if you can. Even if it’s just 10 minutes the second time, or 20 minutes the second time. To have one sitting here on YouTube that’s guided, and one sitting a day where it’s not guided, you’re just left with yourself and practicing in silence with whatever comes up and whatever you see. So you’re developing—it’s kind of like taking the training wheels off, and now you’re getting to starting to see for yourself what the experience is, what’s happening. Some of you certainly can practice more than 20 minutes or 10 minutes, but maybe you don’t. So maybe you can figure out to add a second sitting of some length that works for you.
As we continue for some weeks more on this theme of samadhi, I want to remind you we’re kind of in the approach stage, what’s called access concentration, approaching a deeper samadhi. So I want to review a little bit for a few days and to get us warmed up again, and then we’ll talk about and point you to the possibility of deeper states of concentration. Some of you, it’ll just be informative. Some of you might be familiar and recognize these states for yourselves. And it’s part of the temple, the temple of samadhi.
Thank you very much, and I look forward to being with you again tomorrow.
Samadhi: A Pali word for a state of meditative concentration or collectedness of mind. It is a key component of the Buddhist path, leading to tranquility and insight. ↩
Anapanasati: A Pali term for mindfulness of breathing. It is a core meditation practice in Buddhism where one focuses on the sensation of the breath as it enters and leaves the body. ↩