This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Noble Silence; Insight (34) Self as the Activity of the Moment. 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 the meditation. One of the associations that often comes with meditation is that it involves silence. It doesn’t have to. There is what’s called listening meditation, where the primary focus of meditation is the sound. But meditation is often done in places that are fairly silent and quiet, meditation halls that are quiet.
But the real silence, it’s sometimes called noble silence, is the silence of a peaceful mind. The silence of a mind that’s deeply settled, that’s unified, that’s whole, that feels comfortable with itself, that’s at ease in some deep way. And so there’s no drive to think. There’s no anxiety fueling thinking or desire fueling thinking. There’s no resentment and hatred fueling thinking. There’s no interest in fantasy, no interest in reviewing the past. Not because those things are wrong to do, but because the present moment, just being alive, just breathing, just feeling the peace, the quiet, the happiness, the well-being is so satisfying.
One of the characteristics of that noble silence, the quiet mind, is that the way that the thinking mind, the way that an active, reactive mind somehow builds, creates, is integrally related to our ideas of self: me, myself, and mine. Putting the story of self, the idea of self, the concepts of identity, the concepts of right and wrong, the concepts of needs and wants, all centered around this little constellation called the self, they become quiet. And part of the relief of this kind of noble silence is a vacation from selfing, a vacation from preoccupation with me, myself, and mine.
So, noble silence. Maybe the word noble, which is kind of a Buddhist word, doesn’t quite work for you. Maybe a sacred silence, or maybe a natural silence. Maybe an intimate silence, a peaceful silence. And maybe it’s not even the silence of thoughts, but it’s the silence of thoughts that are preoccupied and concerned with self, so that there’s a self-forgetting in a certain way.
So to assume a meditation posture, and to assume a posture from the inside out. Maybe being careful with a lot of the little details of the posture, kind of adjusting in small little ways, but from the inside out, as if the body itself is revealing, almost like it’s speaking to you in its silent voice, what feels right for a posture. Maybe orienting yourself to a way that the body, the posture itself, feels at home, feels comfortable, feels at ease.
Gently closing the eyes. And with the eyes closed, there is the silence of the eyes. The eyes don’t have to look and see anything.
And then the body reveals itself to us without thoughts, without stories. The body there is sitting quietly in its own simple silence, revealing its sensations. Breathing. Sensations of breathing, sensations of warmth and coolness. If there are sensations of tension or holding, let them be revealed to you without the need to think, to figure anything out. Known in a silent mind, felt in a silent mind.
Maybe on the exhale, softening the body, relaxing into the body.
And if you have a locus, a location for your thinking mind, a small area in the control tower of the head, a place of pressure, some place within that feels maybe a little more solid than other places, know that it’s there. Relax the thinking mind and shift the location, the center of attention, deeper, lower in the body from that thinking place. So you can feel deeper in the body, maybe with the body breathing, the goodness of silence. Silent awareness. Silent sensing.
Appreciating the place within, this quiet place where thoughts do not arise. Thoughts do not make up the center of the experience. Thoughts do not make up the self that we are. The silent sensing and feeling deep inside. Letting yourself be aware through that inner silence, with the noble silence, peaceful silence.
Stay close to where inside the body, with the breathing, that thinking is not needed. And letting your thoughts recede into the background.
So much of life is lived through the filter of ideas, thoughts, stories, intuitions of me, myself, and mine. In noble silence, there’s a shift where the orientation towards life is centered on simple, silent awareness. Self not needed.
Being centered in the noble silence of the body being aware. The body’s awareness that includes everything, that has an inner stability, grounded here in the lived body.
As we come to the end of this meditation, the noble silence is the silent sense of not being preoccupied with self. To be preoccupied is to be caught in thoughts and stories, fantasies, and projections to the past and future. And the alternative, the peaceful alternative, is to be centered in awareness, in the sensing and feeling and knowing that’s deep and quiet. And the knowing, the awareness that resides in the activity of the moment, that’s not free-floating, but here with the activity of now, sitting and meditating.
And as we come to the end, awareness that’s here and now with the heart and mind opening to the world around us, and maybe awakening a care, a goodwill for this wider world. The kind of care and goodwill that comes out of that noble silence of non-self preoccupation. Wishing well for everyone with a general goodwill of the heart, kindness of the heart radiating.
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 talk that continues a series of talks on insight. For those of you who have been involved since the beginning of the year, these talks on insight hopefully stand well on their own, but they’re really meant to be a continuation of the practices of samadhi1 that we did the first half of the year. That samadhi provides a very different context for insight than the ordinary, everyday, distracted, caught-up mind, where there’s a lot of thinking and where thinking around self-preoccupation is so integral and part of the whole way that we’re living that it’s unimaginable to have this wonderful non-preoccupation with self.
For some people, it can feel like a kind of a death because that’s the only thing we know, and how we stay safe is by constructing and keeping and maintaining and defending, asserting a certain kind of self that has maybe kept you safe and really worked well growing up or through the difficulties of life. Some people grow up with tremendous challenges—challenges of violence and neglect and fear—and building up a sense of self is really the only thing that gives them stability and a strong sense of safety and finding their way in the world and staying protected. And so there’s a good reason why this whole teaching of not-self is challenging, and there may be even people who protest.
But to come out of samadhi, a deep, deep settledness, deep quiet and well-being that has settled in some deep way the tense mind, the contracted mind, the preoccupied mind, then we know there’s an alternative to the self that gets constructed and held and built and protected, that maybe is really needed in life sometimes, but it’s not needed all the time. And to know an alternative, to know that there’s a vacation, to know that there’s safety and benefit in an alternative, gives us more leeway, gives us more flexibility. And maybe when we go back into a world of self-preoccupation, we don’t have to take it so solidly and be so tight in holding on to it.
So one of the things that I’ve tried to convey these last few days is how much extra, unnecessary focus there can be on me, myself, and mine. That when there’s any sense of “mine,” of ownership, of possession, even of ourselves, our body, and our emotions and things, if that comes along with craving, if it comes along with attachment, the craving and the attachment is the extra layer, and it’s not necessary. If there is a strong sense of valuing oneself or devaluing oneself, that “I am a certain status,” “I am a certain worthiness or unworthiness,” “I am a certain profession,” “I am a certain role,” if there is a lot of conceit, which is attachment around an idea of self, there are layers and layers of extra effort, extra work, extra preoccupation that in a deep state of samadhi, a deep state of vacation, a deep state of well-being, is not needed to operate.
And when there’s a strong attachment to a certain opinion, view, philosophy, doctrine of what the true self is, the true soul, that “this is who I am,” and there is this thing that I have to hold on to, believe strongly, because then I know that I’m safe over many lifetimes, or then I know that’s what’s going to take me to heaven or it’s going to take me to hell or something—there’s a whole constellation around a sense of soul, true self, essence that people can get quite caught in. And this is called the attachment to opinions, to views, to doctrines. And there can be layers and layers in which that’s extra, that keeps the mind busy. And when the mind is in samadhi, in deep states of peace, a lot of that falls away.
And so we begin learning that there is an alternative to self-preoccupation. There’s an alternative to self-rumination. There’s an alternative to self-assertion, to self-evaluation. This whole kind of vortex, a whirlpool of self-concern that gets so easy to get caught up in, with a lot of support from our society that this is what we have to focus on. And to know an alternative, the noble silence allows us to begin shifting the center, the locus of how we enter into our life, how we live our life.
So I’m going to tell a story, and I’ll maybe partly read it. It’s from my book, The Monastery Within. And the title of it is “The True Self.” So now you’re going to find out what the true self is. So you probably want to listen closely.
A woman came to the monastery determined to ask the abbess how she could discover her true self. She had assumed many identities over her lifetime, most of them identities others had expected of her. When she presented her concern, the abbess replied, “Since knowing the true self is so important for you, you should ask this question of someone who has fully penetrated the issue of self. We have a very learned monk here who has read every Buddhist scripture and the many commentaries. He has studied with some of the greatest Buddhist teachers of this age. He has spent years meditating and has deep realization. Come, I will introduce you to him.”
The abbess led the woman into the courtyard where a solitary monk was absorbed in sweeping the courtyard. “That is him,” said the abbess. “When you’re interested in the true self, it’s important not to be abstract. Don’t ask what the true self is. Ask him what is his true self.”
Shyly but with great hope, the woman walked up to the monk and asked, “What is your true self?”
The monk smiled and continued to sweep.
Going back to the abbess, the woman said, “He didn’t answer my question.”
“Quite the opposite,” said the abbess. “He gave you the most precise answer he could at this time. When he sweeps, his true self is the sweeping.”
There’s a way that who we are is the activity of the moment. And to enter that activity fully aware of our body, our emotions, our thoughts, but to center in the activity as opposed to being in the control tower assigning meaning, assigning concepts, assigning self to what’s happening here. But in the moment, be the sweeping. In the moment, if you’re at work, be that work, and then at the end of work, leave that behind. Then if you’re driving home, who you are is the driver. That simple. If you’re making dinner, who you are is the cook. If you’re eating dinner, you’re the eater. If you’re with a friend and chatting, you’re the talker. You’re the friend.
And so who you are shifts and changes all day long. And there’s no kind of abiding true self. There’s no essence that “this is who I know myself to really be.” But we discover who we are throughout the day, each moment, each activity we’re doing. And the benefit of this full discovery now is you’re up to date with yourself. Full discovery now, you find out all the different ways that you get coordinated, you get brought together for this particular moment now. And it’s enough just this moment.
If you’re with a baby holding the baby, you’re the caretaker. You’re the holder of the baby. And the whole sense of self and who you are is very different than if you’re someone who is caring for the person outside of here who sounds like they’re a little bit very, very angry outside of IMC right now. I can hear who was seeming to have a very, seemingly very large, loud argument with themselves or with an imaginary person. So here I am both teaching and caring. What does this person need? Can I support? I’m the carer.
All these things that go on, we shift and change. And we don’t have to carry one with us to the next. And so now I’m teaching, so it makes me a teacher. In a few minutes, we’ll end this, and I’m the stagehand. I’m going to move back some of the equipment we have here for the broadcast. And then I’m going on to be something else and something else. And there’s a fluidity and a peace where there’s a kind of a deep noble silence. There’s a nobility in not being self-preoccupied, caught in the swirl and thoughts of “this is mine,” “this is what I am,” “this is who my true self is” that we carry with us and hold on to and have layers and layers of more concepts on top of.
So, enter into the activity that you’re doing today. Let that be who you are. Let that be who you are and leave everything else that’s not needed behind. If you need some of your past, if you need something else for the activity at hand, you’ll know, and you’ll know and hold it lightly, hopefully, and let it just be part of it here. But chances are so much of it is not needed. So my suggestion for you today, for the next 24 hours, is to enter more fully into the activities you’re doing during the day, so fully enough that there’s not so much room for self-preoccupation, watching yourself, “How well am I doing? I’m not doing well enough. People are going to be criticizing me.” Let go of all this second layer, second arrows, secondary kind of concepts on top, and let yourself almost become the true self, which is the activity of the moment.
And see what difference it makes today to do that through the day. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you do this well, you’ll end the day much more settled and happy than if you didn’t do it. So, I hope you enjoy this day of being your activity of the moment. Thank you.
Samadhi: A Pali word for a state of deep meditative concentration or absorption. The original transcript said “samadei,” which has been corrected based on context. ↩