This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Onward Leading; Samadhi (35) Onward Leading Attention. 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 again, greeting you from Redwood City, California. As part of the Samadhi1 series, at some point, as the mindfulness gets stronger, the sensitivity gets stronger, the momentum of the practice gets stronger. That’s what we feel is the momentum, or we feel the movement of the practice, or we feel the way or the place in which the practice is growing, or the place that feels onward leading. There’s a feeling that, yes, something is happening here, and it’s good. It’s good to stay with it and go along with it.
To be very simplistic about it, it could be as simple as feeling a muscle tense in some way and feeling that if you really sense the muscles that are tense, tight, you can almost feel the desire, a momentum, a movement that wants to happen, which is for the muscles to relax. And so it is that there’s a kind of easing, a kind of relaxing, a kind of onward moving, a gathering together, a unification, a feeling, “Oh, yes, this is good. This is going someplace.” Or, “This is the place to be,” or, “This is where things are releasing. This is the place where things are becoming concentrated, gathering together. This is the place that feels like we’re growing, or something is developing, or something really good is happening.”
That feeling of onward leading, when it happens—it doesn’t always happen, there has to be some deepening of the practice—then we’re starting to approach what’s called the approach stage of Samadhi, where we feel that we’re coming into a territory or getting close to something. There are many ways of describing this feeling of onward movement of the meditation practice. To feel it and sense it, and then to go along with it, supports the gathering. It usually comes with a sense of rightness, a sense of, “This is where I want to be, not anywhere else.” And so it supports the gathering together, the unification of who we are.
You’re not necessarily going to feel it from day to day; it can vary quite a bit. But to know about it means that when you recognize it, that supports its growth. It can be there to support you. It could also be there to trip you up if you get too involved with it. Part of the beauty of this onward leading feeling is that it’s not part of our desire system. It’s not part of our willful system or system of self, “me,” and “my,” and “I.” It’s almost as if it’s something profound within us that is not us, or not part of our willfulness or our desires or our cravings, that is operating. It’s something to let go into.
So, assume a meditation posture. Part of the role of an intentional, aligned posture is to begin that heightened sensitivity in the body that can sense the subtle movements, the subtle unfolding that might appear. Softly closing your eyes, and letting your eyes rest in their eye sockets.
Sitting quietly in your posture, sitting quietly here and now. Feeling your body, whatever is happening in your body. And sense if there’s any place in your body that would like your attention. Not that it’s screaming for it, necessarily, but any place in your body that says, “Please, my friend, come here. Bring attention here to this part.”
Take a few long, slow, deep breaths, breathing through or with this place that wants attention, that calls on you. And as you exhale, relax and soften all around it. As you have a longer exhale than usual, is there a place in the exhale, the end of the exhale, that would like your attention, welcomes it? Some place in the body where the final feelings of exhale appear.
And letting your breathing return to normal, and spending some time relaxing in your body. On the inhale, feeling the muscles of your face. Maybe feeling if they would like to relax or soften. On the exhale, to soften in the face.
On the inhale, to feel the shoulders and feel if there’s any desire or momentum in the shoulders to relax. On the exhale, to soften the shoulders.
Inhale, feeling the belly. On the exhale, softening in the belly.
On the inhale, feeling the thinking mind. Feeling if anything wants to relax or soften or quiet in the thinking mind. On the exhale, let there be a softening, a quieting in the thinking mind.
On the inhale, feeling any way in which your whole body is bracing itself or collapsing. On the exhale, to relax the bracing or release the collapse, so your body straightens, aligns.
Relaxing into the body, breathing as if there’s a wide circle of sensations of the body that are around the breathing. And as you breathe, as you exhale, all those sensations incline towards the breathing, the sensations of breathing.
In the softest way, gently count your breaths up to three, and then do it again. A counting that is loving, that is caring, gentle, as if it’s gently brushing, stroking each breath.
With a heightened sensitivity, allow your body to feel the entirety of breathing in, the entirety of breathing out. Perhaps mostly in some place where the breathing is pleasant, quiet, where the experience of breathing welcomes you to stay with it.
And as you give yourself over to your breathing, is there any feeling in the breathing, any place in the body that feels like the right place for your awareness to be? Where there’s a subtle feeling of, “Yes, here.” Perhaps where there’s some semblance of an onward leading feeling, “This is the way forward, staying close to this.” And if so, give yourself over to it. Allow yourself to feel the very subtle momentum of, “Here, this is onward leading.”
One aspect of the onward leading nature of the practice is related to faith or confidence that has within it a desire to be more present, to be awake and present for our experience. Because knowing how good this is, having faith in mindfulness, attention, brings an onward leading desire to being more fully here for our experience.
And as we come to the end of this sitting, to appreciate that faith, confidence in being present for our life, being present for the experience, translates as a kind of a love, care, respect for those we encounter. There is a very subtle, maybe sometimes not so subtle, faith and confidence that it’s good to be present. Each person in their own way, but to be present and attentive, aware of those we’re with. And this is onward leading, onward leading to a peaceful and harmonious society.
May this practice of mindfulness, the practice of Samadhi, support us in being mindful and present for that onward leading nature of building a harmonious society.
May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be safe. And may all beings everywhere be free.
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to the 35th talk of this Samadhi series. As the mind relaxes, as our ability to be centered and be more fully present here, there is this amazing feeling that to be here fully and completely is not a static thing, but there’s an onward leading nature to it. There’s something that wants to move through us, something that wants to express itself, something that wants to be for us. That can be many things, but in terms of Samadhi, when we’re giving ourselves over to this one primary activity of just being present here, for example, for the breathing, that starts to become the place that the whole mind-body gathers, enters into. And the goodness of it, the rightness of it, the feeling of, “Yes, this is where I want to be. This is healthy. This is appropriate,” it begins to stand out.
It highlights when we start realizing that to be caught up in our thoughts, caught up in our plans, our worries, our memories, our regrets, our irritations or complaints, that is not as healthy as being really here. Fully being here in deep Samadhi is almost like entering into a deep vacation, a deep rest, a deep, healthy alternative to the usual way in which the mind is stressful. And it feels good to be there. It feels like this is a healthy mind, this is a healthy heart and body. And there’s a kind of feeling of “yes” to this. And that feeling of “yes” has a kind of feeling of an onward leading nature. It’s similar to being on the top of a slide. You’ve maybe slid a little bit down the slide and then hold on to the side so you don’t go any further, but you can feel the tug, the pull of gravity that wants to pull you down if you just let go.
And so the same thing, there’s a kind of a slide or a movement that we can feel that is kind of like the pull of the heart’s gravity, or the gravity of the inner life, that is not willful. It’s not a desire from the usual self that wants and expects and demands and is disappointed. It’s almost as if it’s a kind of a biological feeling that is deeper than any mental movement of the mind. And to appreciate that to be fully present is not static, but is to join a kind of momentum, to join the living stream of life that now is going along into more and more presence, more and more just here, just with this experience.
Certainly, there are times in ordinary life where we get absorbed in a particular activity, and it just feels so good. Some people say they feel lost in the activity, and they just can’t wait to go back into it. They might get pulled out, and sometimes it’s interesting to see how, being pulled out of an activity we’re absorbed in, part of the mind just wants to come back. It’s like the momentum is there. And then as soon as we let go of the other thing that has to be taken care of, it feels so good to be back in the groove. This is the way to go, this is the way to move forward.
So, it’s actually very useful for the purpose of Samadhi to not just be willfully trying—not at all to be willfully pushing and straining to be concentrated. A lot of it is letting go, but it’s letting go at some point into the onward leading nature, into this way in which our system wants to move forward by stepping more into the experience, more deeply, giving ourselves over to the experience more deeply.
Sometimes this onward leading nature can take the form of just a subtle feeling that says, “Oh, this is where the attention should be.” If it’s connected to the breathing, it might be, “This part of the body is where attention should be.” And having attention rest there, like a hand resting on your thigh. The hand of awareness is resting on some place in the body where breathing is felt. And sometimes that shifts and changes as we develop the practice. I’ve often had the experience where I’m centered on my belly as I breathe, feeling the movements of my belly. But then sometimes, as the breathing gets quieter and quieter, the place that feels like this is where the attention should be moves up to the middle of the chest, and I feel the little movements in the chest there. And then sometimes it moves again. Sometimes it moves back to just a little point of pressure, a little point of sensation, somehow deep in the belly, below the belly button. And it’s just like, “This is where the attention should be.” And there might be almost no movement if I’m really still and quiet, but there’s a feeling, “Oh, this is where the attention wants to be. This is onward leading,” or, “This is where the request is. This is where it feels the ‘yes’ is.”
This “yes,” this onward leading nature, can also be related to a number of other things. One of them is it can be related to faith. And faith, saddhā2 in Pāli3, is a kind of a desire, a healthy desire that says, “Yes, this is where it’s right to be. This is what wants to happen. This is what I have faith in. This is what I have confidence in.” And again, it’s not “I,” even though I say “I.” It’s something deeper inside, not really the control tower, the control self. This is the place where there’s a natural system operating. The natural system has this faith, has this confidence, has this “yes,” has this desire, “Yes, stay here, be with this.”
But don’t push it. If you feel the onward leading nature, let go into it, participate in it, but don’t bring the control self, the control desires, to bear, like, “Okay, now I’m going to do it really well. I can feel it, and now I’m going to really push against it.” It’s more like, be soft, ease into it, trust it. The faith can also be a trust. Trust this experience and trust to go along with it.
This is particularly important for Samadhi because any degree of concentration that we have always has a lifetime. You can’t just get into a state of Samadhi and stay there forever. It always has a lifetime where it peaks and then it’s going to fade away. And so if you’re coming with your kind of control desires to want to get concentrated, then you might be overriding the wave of Samadhi that’s going through. Part of the art of Samadhi is also to appreciate when the peak of whatever degree of subtleness you have has passed. And partly you know that because the thinking mind begins to start up again. And it’s not wrong that the concentration wanes; it’s just a natural part. And part of a healthy kind of relationship to concentration is to learn to recognize when the concentration is starting to fade and then be gracious about that. Just continue the practice for a while, but not with any idea that it should be any different, that it’s not supposed to fade. Maybe switch to mindfulness more than concentration, and don’t fight it. Don’t try to override it fading away when that time comes. And if that fading away happens before the end of your normal meditation, then just continue with the practice the best you can, but don’t have a high standard. It’s not going to look that great as your concentration wanes, but the effort to continue with the practice is building the muscle of practice, the strength of practice that then will support you at other times.
The onward leading nature becomes important for what we’ll do next week, which is go into a little bit more detail, or in a different way, the approach stage of going into deep Samadhi, deep absorption. And becoming skilled a little bit in the approach stage is helpful, which is where we really kind of start feeling we’re in the approach where the momentum is starting to kick in, and learning how to ride that is important.
So, the other thing, next Friday, after this 7:00 a.m., I think it starts at 9:00 or 9:30, I’m teaching an online daylong for the Insight Retreat Center that will be on Zoom, and it’s on mindfulness of emotions. So it’s a different topic than Samadhi, but certainly the more we’re mindful of emotions and are wise about it, the more that actually supports Samadhi. Because in a certain kind of way, Samadhi is emotional, belongs to the deep, profound emotions of well-being, of peace, of confidence, of joy, of equanimity. So learning how to be with emotions can be supportive. And if you’re interested in doing that, you need to register, and it’s on the Insight Retreat Center website.
So thank you all very much, and I look forward to our approach next week.
Samadhi: A Pāli word that refers to a state of deep meditative concentration or absorption. It is a key component of the Buddhist path, leading to tranquility and insight. ↩
Saddhā: A Pāli word often translated as “faith,” “confidence,” or “conviction.” In Buddhism, it is not blind faith but rather a confidence that arises from understanding and personal experience of the teachings. ↩
Pāli: An ancient Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is the classical language of the Theravāda Buddhist canon. ↩