This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Centering on Core Calm; Insight (30) Alternative to Self Preoccupation. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Unknown at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Welcome, everyone. For this Friday meditation and teaching, we’ll focus on the not-self aspect of insight practice. As I’ve been saying this week, the focus is not yet on discussing or guiding you through the idea of the experience or the insight of not-self. The idea is to understand more about the experience of self that we have. Today will be a little bit of a bridge between self and not-self.
The way that we prioritize ourselves is that we think a lot about ourselves; we are concerned with our own well-being, which is quite appropriate. But we’re also anxious about ourselves, and we have a lot of desires. Those desires can be tied to our view of ourselves and how we want to be seen by others. We can have a lot of aversion that is also integral to how we experience the self, perhaps because we want to be safe or we want to not suffer. The whole self becomes a project of pushing things away or avoiding challenges.
It’s very easy for the self—the feeling, the experience, the gathering together, the global sense of “I’m here”—to be penetrated or suffused with anxiety, with desire, with aversion, with confusion, with tension, with stress, and with motivations for and against. A lot of extra things come along. The idea of self is a magnet for it. The way we organize ourselves as a self is a magnet for a lot of things that are not inherently part of self but that can actually gum up the process, make our life more challenging, and make it more complicated than it needs to be.
One of the ways this happens is we take the self as too much of who we are; we over-identify. It becomes a global sense, so whatever comes along with self—whatever emotions and attitudes—becomes part and parcel of the self, and it becomes global: global anxiety, global aversion, global confusion, global tension.
But in fact, we are multifaceted human beings. We’re whole ecosystems within us. There are sources of emotions, motivations, and ease. There are places within us where there is no tension, even if it’s a very small place. And there are places where our thinking, the way we understand the world, and the way we respond to the world can be much wiser, much softer, much more at ease and comfortable with ourselves.
At the same time as we have anxiety or tension around this idea of self, one of the interesting things about meditation and Buddhism is how we can learn to shift where we take up residency. We can shift where we think we have to latch on and figure things out to manage for ourselves, to do our work as a human being. If we do it from this complicated place of self with all its tension, then it’s all too easy to perpetuate that tension.
But there are other places deep within us—profound forms of sensing, knowing, and intelligence—that come out of a place of ease, a sense of well-being, a sense of goodness, a sense of home, a sense of stability and settledness. That’s one of the purposes of samadhi1—to get grounded and filled by this alternative location, this alternative way of being alive that is not narrowed or tightened around the concept, the idea, and the associations that we have around “me, myself, and mine.”
Learning to make that shift and to find this other center for ourselves is part of the purpose of Buddhist meditation. Some people might call this deeper, softer place where the tension of self is not operating as an aspect of self. Some people might prefer to think of it as who they are, and that can be quite innocent. For now, it’s not an issue that we want to address but to actually build on that and appreciate it.
So, assume a meditation posture and gently close your eyes.
One of the opportunities with taking a few deeper, fuller breaths and relaxing at the beginning of meditation is, in fact, to shift the orientation of attention, of presence, of stability out of the busy mind, the reactive mind, the anxious mind, the tense mind. As we exhale, we settle, relax, and shift the attention from the thinking mind, the selfing mind, to some place deeper within. Maybe it’s a still, quiet place deep in the torso. Maybe a deep, quiet, comfortable place within is supported by feeling the weight of your body supported by your chair, your cushion, the floor. The solidity and stability that that might give helps to shift from the control tower to the solid, earth-like place within us.
Relaxing on the exhale.
Letting the breathing be normal. And on the exhale, let there be a gentling, a softening of the thinking mind, the control tower, the location of tension around being the doer, the thinker, the experiencer. Softening, gentling.
Take a few moments to have a global experience of your body in whatever way that’s easy. A broad feeling of presence, of awareness of the sensations and solidity and openness of inhabiting your body. Even if some of it’s uncomfortable, let there be a broader attention than where the discomfort is. A broad awareness that doesn’t have a clear boundary at your skin. There are soft, porous edges, maybe no edges at all to the broad awareness here in the body.
Within this broad awareness, breathing is like the waves moving through the ocean. Breathing is like a gentle movement through this broad awareness.
Maybe allow the inhale to begin at the settling spot, the grounding spot deep within. And follow the exhale back to that grounding spot, the place deep within where the last sensations of breathing occur. A place of stability, of settledness.
If there is in you any tension, pressure, or stress associated with thinking, feeling, emotions—anything that might be associated with your usual involvement with yourself—leave that alone. Let it be there on the edges, not to be concerned with it. And instead, assume that the deepest home for yourself is deep within, in a place that feels comfortable, tension-free. Maybe it feels soft and cozy, sweet. Where maybe there is no tension, no anxiety. Where there is a contentment just to be deep within.
Breathing with that place. Breathing through it. Breathing out of it. Returning to it.
Letting all the thoughts of self and self-concern be like children playing in the nearby room. And you are settled here in the comfort of your inner life, at ease.
Take a couple of minutes to gently, softly quiet the thinking mind and to sense and feel deep within. Is there a place within that might be characterized in one of these ways? Contentment, calm, happy, settled, home. A sense of wholeness, integrity, a generative silence.
Is there a place deep inside that feels more valuable, more satisfying than the anxious thinking mind, the swirling contractions of mind and thoughts and the self that comes along with it? Is there a more deep, centered place? Even if it’s just hints of it or an intuition of it.
What is it like to see the world through that deep place instead of through the control tower? What is it like to accompany the world from this deep place? From the most peaceful place within. What does goodwill look like? How do care and love, compassion, manifest out of this peace?
And so then, to end the sitting, if there is a deeper place in which to offer goodwill to the world, have these wishes.
May the benefit of this meditation be used for the welfare and happiness of all beings. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.
Hello and welcome to this fifth talk on the insight into not-self. It feels very important to not begin with that topic directly, but to rather begin by a better understanding of what our experience of self is, how the idea of self, the feeling of self manifests for us.
I think it’s fair to say that for many people, even if there is a self—and there’s no denying that there’s something like that going on—many people overemphasize that self or are over-preoccupied with it. We can see it easily in other people. We see that someone is quite conceited, or we see that people have an amazingly strong kind of negative conceit, being very critical of themselves, having a very negative view of themselves. There might be some appropriateness to seeing that we have foibles, we have things that are a little odd or maybe a little bit off, but the way in which we have created a self around that and are preoccupied and consumed with that is overdone.
Psychologists say that one of the leading causes of depression—by no means the only one, but one of the leading causes—is rumination. I suspect most of that rumination is centered on “me, myself, and mine.” We’re concerned with “I’m not good enough,” “I’m not getting what I need,” or “I’m making mistakes,” or “I’m inadequate,” or “I’m a bad person,” or something. The strength of attention, the strength of getting glued to this whole idea of self, reinforcing it, having all this energy and tension flow into and around this idea, this sense of self, creates a focus, a preoccupation which is not so healthy and maybe not needed.
I think it’s probably fair to say that there’s something about Western culture, maybe the culture here in the United States, maybe it’s modern culture, where there’s an increasing emphasis on self. With social media, some people get completely consumed and depressed and upset and anxious about having enough friends, enough hits, enough followers. Some people spend an inordinate amount of time with what they look like, getting themselves photographed. I’ve seen over my lifetime, with the coming of selfies and presenting oneself on social media, an amazing amount of focus on posing for pictures with clothes and looks and attitudes to present oneself in a particular way.
If you go back and look at photographs from a hundred years ago, especially from the old monks in Thailand who’d never seen a camera before and were sitting quietly and cross-legged, they had no reference point for what was going on. It never occurred to them to smile. There was no give and take of conversation between the camera people and them. They were just being patient. They were told to sit there for a picture, and they didn’t even know what that was. And so they look completely serious, some of them fierce and gloomy. They don’t have the bright, happy face that some of us put on for cameras. They weren’t concerned about how other people in other times would see them and think about them.
So this over-concern with ourselves, how people see us, how people will criticize us, over-concern with perfectionism, over-concern that we have to do it just right—some of that’s been created by our society. Some of it’s created by your family experience where maybe sometimes family members growing up will tell you who you are, that you’re somehow bad, or that you’re supposed to be the greatest, the next president or something. And so the whole idea of self gets really strong.
When my first son was young, my wife suggested to me that instead of saying “good boy” to my son if he did something nice or wonderful, I would say, “Wow, that was fun. That looks like a really good thing, a good time.” I would be excited and approving, but without something that defined who he was—a “good boy”—because then he has to continue being a good boy to get his father’s love or care.
This is an overemphasis on self. That’s not the same as saying there’s no self. That’s a whole different orientation. And it might be more useful, because the whole teaching of not-self can be a distraction from what’s more important. What’s more important is to be free of this tension, free of stress, free of clinging, free of this over-preoccupation with a small part of who we are.
People who practice mindfulness and meditation can feel how preoccupation with self narrows attention. Some people have reported that there’s a darkening, like there’s no more light anymore because we’re so caught up in these thoughts and ideas and concerns and desires related to this important thing, the self. To let that fall away, or if that’s not possible, to begin realizing that there’s another place, another source within us from where we can think—I call it contemplation, a very soft, relaxed, profound feeling of thinking. We don’t have to think with the control tower. There are other places within where we can find some kind of generative feeling of intuition, of intelligence, of knowing.
Mindfulness itself, awareness itself, doesn’t have to come from the control tower where it’s willed mindfulness, but rather it’s allowed mindfulness that’s allowed to flow and arise out of a deeper place of well-being inside. It doesn’t mean that the preoccupation and rumination around self has stopped. It just means that this very precious resource that we have—attention, awareness, mindfulness—is no longer being used to feed that preoccupation, but rather it’s used to nourish and feed a profound sense of inner presence, a profound sense of peaceful quiet, calm, relaxed grounding. To be really present here in the moment in a grounded, clear, settled way where we’re not rushing ahead, we’re not rushing into preoccupations and thoughts. Rather, what arises out of us, if we’re speaking, is speaking as if it arises from deep within, from the belly or deep in the torso. Where we’re centered is not in a mental tension. We’re not ahead of ourselves, not behind ourselves. We’re not feeding rumination. We’re not feeding conceit. We’re not feeding this big preoccupation with self that, as I said, has grown in our society.
What we’re nourishing or cultivating is a profound sense of presence, attention, and stability coming from a deep place within. And if we want to have a self that is valuable to stay close to, that’s a self that has no tension in it.
So when the Buddha said, “Make yourself a refuge, your only refuge. Make the dharma your refuge, your only refuge,” he was pointing to the fact that there is a kind of place deep inside that can be our refuge, our protection, our home, our sense of belonging that we carry with us like a turtle carries its shell, but in this case, something deep inside.
And so, rather than arguing if there is a self at this point in the process, we want to shift the locus where our life is based from the preoccupied self, the tense self, to a place that’s much more calm and settled deep within.
When we start talking about not-self, we’re not negating this deeper source within. We’re beginning to see that deep source is not something to latch on to, not something to cling to, not something to become tense about. It’s something actually to open to and be freer with. It turns out that the inner depth of who we are, the richest, most valuable parts of who we are, operates much better if we don’t clothe it in self, if we don’t build or create or make a self with it. We just let it be. Let it operate in a profound way.
So those are the thoughts. And as I’ve said many times now this week, at this point I’m not saying there’s no self. I’m not even teaching what not-self is about. But I’m wanting you to become wiser and more clear about learning to see the complexity and the unnecessary tension that comes along with our ordinary senses of self. To see that clearly sets the stage for all of us to become interested in an alternative, part of what I pointed you to today. That will be the topic next week, and that’ll also go slow then. But I’m looking forward to continuing this very important topic. Okay, thank you.
Samadhi: A Pali word that refers to a state of meditative concentration or absorption. ↩