This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditaiton: Calming Tension: Insight (26) Self as Tension. 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 everyone and welcome to our beginning of our week, our morning meditation coming out of Insight Meditation Center here in Redwood City. I’m delighted to be back having been gone for two weeks, and I guess I’ve been gone from you for one week because of the replay we did last week. So I hope that went well and allowed you all to continue with this deepening of a practice that can happen with samadhi1.
As we go along now on the insight track of this year’s teaching, I would like to suggest that one of the benefits of developing samadhi, one of the benefits of developing insight, is to be able to have a heightened sensitivity to tension. Any tension, any stress that is in our physical, mental, and emotional system. And that could be very subtle. Sometimes it’s obvious; it couldn’t be more obvious that we’re living with a lot of tension in our bodies and our minds.
And what I’d like to recommend is that tension is a form of dukkha2, a form of stress or suffering. That is the second of the three important insights. The insight into things change, the insight into how we add a degree of suffering, tension to our life. And then the third insight we’re going to begin today is into not-self. But to prepare for that, surprisingly perhaps, is that we want to get refined in our capacity to recognize tension.
Chances are that any ongoing preoccupation of your mind involves tension. Chances are that any ongoing strong, maybe difficult emotion, maybe not so difficult emotion that we’re involved in, preoccupied with, reacting to one way or the other, there’s tension involved that we’re adding to it. If there’s difficult physical sensations, they’re difficult in and of themselves, but there might be strong or very subtle tension that we have in our relationship to them, pulling away, pushing away, tightening up around it.
And so the advantage of samadhi’s deep peace, deep subtleness, the advantage of strong clarity of mind that has insight is we can start recognizing tension. And the tension is unnecessary. We can take care of our life issues without the tension. We can exist fine in this world without tension.
And so for the morning meditation, do your meditation as you usually do. I’ll guide it. But the underlying practice is to soften, relax, quiet the tensions that you recognize. And let me suggest again that anytime you’re preoccupied with something, anytime you repeatedly are involved in some concern, chances are there’s tension involved with that. See if you can recognize that tension, feel the tension, know it, feel it, and relax.
So, assume a meditation posture and appreciate your meditation posture. Appreciate what can be appreciated about a posture you regularly take for meditation.
And to gently close your eyes and without any tension, without doing too much, taking some fuller breaths that you enjoy taking. Take fuller breaths in a way that you enjoy them. Maybe by expanding the belly as you breathe in. Maybe it’s the chest. Maybe it’s a tingling of the air against your nostrils that you enjoy. Maybe it’s even the very subtle sense of movement in your back rib cage.
No tension in breathing in, or as little as possible. And on the exhale, to relax the body. At the end of the exhale, pausing for an instant to allow the body to settle more.
And then to allow your breathing to return to normal. But even with a normal breathing, if it’s easy enough and no tension involved, can you adjust your breathing so it’s more enjoyable? And can you focus on the experience of breathing where it is enjoyable? Maybe it’s not the strongest sensations of breathing. Maybe it’s more subtle edges of breathing.
And as you breathe in, feel any tension that’s in your mind, your thinking mind. And as you exhale, relax the thinking mind. If any part of the breathing is pleasant, maybe that pleasant breathing can hold any tension in the mind. Meet it. Help the mind settle and relax.
And if there’s any emotions you feel, maybe in the heart area or elsewhere, that involve any tension, pressure, again with the simplicity of breathing, a gentle stroking of the emotion, the tension, breathing with it, through it. Softening emotional tension.
And if there’s any holding in your body, tension in the body, maybe you can’t relax it, but perhaps on the exhale you can soften it.
Settling into the body. Breathing, the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out. And in that cycle of breathing, can you find where there is the moment of least tension? Where breathing occurs free of tension or pressure? And may that point of no tension, little tension, be the gift to everything else all around you. Welcoming everything else, all other tension to relax, soften.
At the end of the exhale, notice any tension you have. Feel it as you inhale, and soften it on the exhale. Especially any tension, pressure associated with thinking. Maybe not being so concerned with the content of your thoughts, the subject, and more oriented to the tension that comes along with thinking.
And as we come to the end of the sitting, almost as if your breathing can touch it as you breathe, feel the ways in which you’re more settled, more tension-free. Even if there’s still tension, feel what doesn’t have any tension in your body, mind, and heart.
And the areas without tension, those are the channels by which care and kindness, love, compassion can flow. Gaze upon the world through the channels free of tension. Imagine looking upon your family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, fellow humans around the world from a place where there’s no tension.
And if you can, have the wish that somehow from your meditation, you’re able to better go into the world with kindness and goodwill. Better able to meet people with a heart that wishes them well.
May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.
And may each of us in our own ways, small and large, contribute to the well-being of others. May all beings be happy.
Thank you.
So, good day everyone. Hello and welcome to this continuation of a series of talks on insight, the insight of insight meditation that followed a longer series on samadhi. And all this builds to a deepening and deepening insight. There are three primary insights that our tradition gives the most emphasis on: the insight into change, how everything is changing all the time; insight into suffering, stress, tension; and then insight into not-self.
The teachings on self, not-self can be quite challenging for many people. Many people don’t understand it, or it’s disturbing, or some people think it’s ridiculous the way it’s presented. And so I want to take our time to introduce you to this idea. It’s meant to be a simple, practical idea, this teaching of not-self, that is not trying to introduce any ideas to you. It’s not trying to overlay some belief system on you but is supposed to be something that you somehow, in some certain kind of way, see for yourself. You’ll see something about self, not-self that stands out as obvious to you. It’s not a matter of having to believe it; it’s that you have your own insight that maybe is very meaningful for you to see and maybe even satisfying to see.
So we’ll get into this over these next days, but for today I would like to suggest something more simple and maybe a little bit more of an introductory word. A general statement that gets us into the territory of what we’re going to look at. And that is kind of the flippant or cartoonish definition of self. Someone asked, “What is self?” And someone else answers, “Tension. Self is tension.”
Of course, it’s not always tension, but a great majority of the time when people are involved in self, with not-self, with no-self, with all-self, whatever kind of idea of self that goes on, chances are high that there is tension involved. The Buddha said that there’s no doctrine of self, no philosophy of what the self is, that is not without dukkha. And for today, I’ll call that tension. That is not without some kind of tension.
Dharma practice has less to do with deciding or determining what is or is not the self, as it is becoming free of tension associated with self and not-self, the way we hold it, the way we relate to it.
And so as we get into this topic of not-self, we’re building on a meditation practice we’ve been doing, the teachings we’ve been doing over these now more than six months that have to do with settling the mind, becoming very calm and peaceful, knowing how to relax deeply, and knowing how to see clearly what’s happening here and now in the present moment. And then with that, not using that to indulge in, to bask in calm or peace, but rather use that as a foundation. Whatever degree of calm you have, use it to become more sensitive to the tension that goes on deep in the mind and deep in the heart. The tension associated with me, myself, and mine. The tension associated with ideas of who I am, identities that I have and am holding on to and defending and championing and expressing.
There’s no dismissing of anything, any idea of self, any sense of self, feeling of self, but rather freeing ourselves from any tension that’s associated with it. That is a radical thing. And so what that takes is to become sensitive to the tension around self. And one of the places to see that is in thinking.
For most people, a high percentage of their thoughts are self-referential. We’re having conversations with someone or we’re considering what happened and “he said, she said, they said,” or we are planning what we’re going to do, and we’re remembering what we did do. We’re evaluating ourselves, monitoring ourselves, criticizing ourselves. We’re kind of like the main subject of our thoughts more often than not. And even if the self is not the center of what we’re thinking about, the way that we’re involved in other thoughts, we bring a kind of self along. The self that has to be right, the self that has to be perfect, the self that has to be responsible, the self that is somehow being pushed around by the world and trying to defend ourselves. There’s often a self involved one way or the other. Some idea, some feeling, some intuition.
And the task right now, if you’re willing or interested, is to not become a philosopher of self, not try to defend it or build it or have some idea of what the self is, but rather to become highly sensitive to the tension that comes along with that, the contraction, the pressure. Sometimes that tension or stress or pressure might be qualified to be called suffering. It hurts. It’s kind of like a painful self. And to feel the tension and then not be so concerned about the cause of the tension, the subject of your thinking. Just tune into the tension so that the tension becomes a little bit liberated from what is triggering it—the belief, the ideas of me, myself, and mine. Just feel the tension almost as just a physical phenomenon and see if you can relax it, soften it. Let it kind of melt into the atmosphere around you or let it kind of gently start draining.
Sometimes I think of tension as being like a ball on a hillside, and it’s being held back. The tension is the holding back of the ball. If you let go of that tension of holding it back, then it rolls down the hill and it opens up and relaxes.
So I would recommend, if you’re interested, as kind of homework for the next 24 hours, is to become a connoisseur of the tension that is associated with anything to do with me, myself, and mine. What is mine? Who I am, about my experience. It could be very subtle, just the sense of being the experiencer, being the doer. Even simple, seemingly innocent ideas like that often will come with tension. And the more we’re actually actively thinking, actively doing, propelled by that self, chances are the more tension we have. The more we’re thinking about the same thing over and over again where we’re the subject in the thoughts, the chances are there’s more tension underlying that. It might be tension you feel behind the forehead, somewhere in the brain between the ears. It might be in the face, might be in the hands or the belly, the chest.
But feel the tension. And maybe as you do this, feel the tension with the background or the foreground of whatever calm or peace or lack of tension you feel somewhere in your body. Maybe there are some places where it’s relatively easy to soften, relax, calm, and to feel that. Sometimes people carry tension in their hands and their fingers. And sometimes, because that’s an easier place to just kind of open and soften and relax the hand, maybe even putting the hand on a surface so it’s being supported. And that calm of an untense hand can become the reference point for other places that it’s not so easy to relax. Look for a reference point. Look for places where you can be free of tension.
And in the meantime, do not worry, do not be concerned with, “Is there a self or is there no self? A good Buddhist is not supposed to have a self,” but that doesn’t make any sense. And so there’s tension around all these kinds of ideas of self. Don’t be involved in them more than being concerned or interested in how there’s tension in that involvement, in that concern.
So provisionally, if someone asks you, “What is the self in Buddhism?” maybe if it doesn’t seem to offend them or confuse them, you can say, “It’s tension.”
Sometimes I’ve thought of self as wind drag. It’s like putting out your hand or any kind of flat object that’s wind drag for a car or a boat and slowing it down. And self is wind drag. Self is tension. And whether that’s true or not, it’s a nice reference point for helping us understand how much wind drag, how much tension we carry with this idea of self.
So I hope you enjoy this. I hope this helps you to have a calmer way of being in the world, more peaceful, and I look forward to continuing this tomorrow.
Samadhi: A Pali word for a state of meditative consciousness or concentration. It refers to the development of a calm, stable, and unified mind. ↩
Dukkha: A Pali word often translated as “suffering,” “stress,” or “unsatisfactoriness.” It is a central concept in Buddhism, referring to the inherent stress and discontent in life. ↩