This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Entering Simplicity; Insight (38) “This” is Not Self. 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. It’s a fairly simple thing to sit down, come into a meditation posture, and put aside our daily affairs, activities, and concerns, if we can. To be here, simply sitting, being, breathing, and noticing how much extra we do—how much extra we add on top of the simplicity of this moment as it’s unfolding.
The simpler we get in meditation, the more we can see what we add, perhaps unnecessarily, to the present moment. And we can develop wisdom, understanding, and even freedom in relationship to what is extra.
One of the movements of this simplification is to move towards a simplification of how we conceive and perceive the present. We don’t perceive it through the filter of abstractions. For example, if I’m listening to the weather report on the news, and the person says that a cold front is coming in with a torrential rainstorm, I get concerned. In my mind, “torrential rainstorm” evokes danger and all kinds of issues. I have to close my windows, get a raincoat.
But then, maybe I’m on a hilltop and I can see the rain coming in the distance. I see a dark zone under big, darkish clouds. From that experience, I see a “rainstorm.” It’s just this massive thing that’s coming. As it gets closer, I see streaks and patterns that show me there’s rain there. But then it gets closer, and I’m in the rain. Now I see lots and lots of individual drops falling by.
I’ve gone from the abstraction, from taking in the general whole, to now seeing the details—all the little pieces that make up the storm. Each drop is not a rainstorm. Now I can see the beauty of a drop. I can catch it in my hand and look at it, be amazed, and maybe appreciate it.
In meditation, we’re moving in the same direction: from the abstraction to the details of the moment, the little perceptual pieces from which we build layers and layers of abstraction. If I say to myself that I’m a mediocre person and live that way, that’s an abstraction. But if I get closer to where that idea is coming from, I might see it’s because it’s so important for me to be a good basketball player. What I’m really saying is that I’m a mediocre basketball player. But if I get closer, I see that mediocreness is only in relationship to the team I’m on, compared to others. And if I get closer still, I see that in the moment, I missed the basket. There was disappointment. Before the abstraction—”I’m a lousy basketball player,” “I’m a mediocre person”—it was just: I missed the basket.
If I’m a good basketball player, I don’t linger with that idea in the game. I’m ready for the next thing. I’m following the ball across the court, seeing the ball, the players, the details.
So in meditation, we’re starting to come down to see the details. Putting aside all the extra, just here with the breathing, the sensations. A thought arises. This thought might be an abstraction, but we see, “Oh, there’s an abstract thought.” The advantage of this, as we get closer and closer to the simplicity of the moment, is we see everything as a brief phenomenon, like raindrops falling. We see things at the level of sensations, thoughts, emotions—the details of experience, lots of things coming and going.
And in that coming and going, we don’t attribute a self. In fact, if we attribute a self, we see that as one more little detail that comes and goes, one more drop of water. As we get quieter and quieter in meditation, feeling the inconstancy, the changing nature of everything below the conceptual overlay, we see everything is changing all the time. It’s extra to have this notion of self in relationship to it. It’s an abstraction.
The luxury, the benefit of meditation, is that for a few minutes, you don’t need that overlay, that abstraction of self and all the things that come with it. We learn to rest in the simplicity of the change.
So, assume a meditation posture, lowering your gaze or closing your eyes.
Immediately, just feel the sensations that you have. Feel them—the physicality and the immediacy of sensations as they are in and of themselves, before there’s an interpretation, an overlay of ideas, an abstraction made from them. Just the sensations.
Maybe feel the changing nature, the shifting and changing, coming and going, oscillating, vibrating nature of sensations. Feeling the sensations of your emotions. Maybe you can even feel the sensation of thinking.
And the sensations of breathing. Entering into the direct experience of breathing.
Feeling the sensations of focusing or straining to see or know. And to feel those sensations, freeing up that area of tension, letting it relax and soften. Feeling the breath.
If any thought, story, or idea arises about yourself, see it as an abstraction, as a generalization that takes you away from the simple sensations, which are shifting and changing, coming and going.
What is the simplest way that you can sit here? And what is the simplest way of being aware of the present? Seeing the present moment without the filter of any generalized, abstract ideas. Not being in the thoughts, but being in the sensations.
And as we come to the end of this sitting, feel and recognize any calm or settledness that’s here. Any way that you’ve become simpler, a simple presence here in the present moment. The degree to which thoughts have quieted, the degree to which seeing the world through the filter of thoughts and ideas is lessened.
And then, imagine seeing others without the filter of abstract ideas, without memories of the past or ideas of the future, without the overlay or the filter of desires and aversion. So many of the ways we see people are things that we add, often unnecessarily. Imagine simply seeing someone without any overlay, so they’re allowed to be as they are in your gaze.
And with this simplicity of being, simplicity of recognition, can this be a clear medium through which your goodwill can travel? Goodwill, care, love, kindness that is also simpler, cleaner, unagitated.
Wishing others well.
May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be free. May all beings be happy.
Thank you.
Hello everyone, and welcome to this amazing topic of insight, this amazing capacity we have to see clearly. The word Vipassanā1, translated as insight, has the word “see” in it. Passanā is to see, and vi is the emphatic “really see,” which becomes clear seeing, or insight.
To appreciate the wonder and potential of it is to begin seeing the possibility of seeing without the filter of preconceived ideas, biases, preferences, and abstractions. To just see simply.
This was a big lesson for me when I was 18, traveling with friends through Morocco. I felt a very strange thing there; there was a kind of ease and simplicity in my mind that I had never felt before. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was different. After a while, I decided the reason was that, back then, the people in Morocco wore clothes that were very different from what I was used to in Europe or the United States. I had no context to judge them, to peg them, to see if they were conservative, hippie, this, or that. I didn’t have that overlay. My mind wasn’t creating this interpretation; I was just seeing people with these different clothes. It was very simple. And remarkably, such a simple, innocent thing as recognizing someone by their clothes is an activity that keeps the mind activated. Not doing that was actually pleasant and nice.
So, to begin to see clearly without the overlay of concepts and ideas, to see things as they are. One of the first insights is the insight into change, into inconstancy. To become quiet enough, still enough from the abstractions we have, to see that all the sensations, all the ways in which things appear and disappear in our senses and perceptions… in a deep, quiet mind that is relaxed and still, awareness itself is fluid and flowing. It feels more like we’re in a river of change all the time.
When we’re in that river of change, just feeling everything changing, we can see that we do something extra, an addition to the change: we see our experience and ourselves through the lens of self. “This is who I am,” “this is myself,” “this is mine.” It can be innocent enough and appropriate to have that overlay, but to realize that you don’t have to do it all the time is powerful. It’s even more powerful not to do it and to have this relief in the mind, this peace that’s comparable to what I experienced in Morocco. It’s a lot easier to go through the world not constantly attributing something to the self or having the self as the filter through which we experience things. Some people go through the world with the lens of “What’s in it for me?” or “What’s the danger for me now?” We’re constantly on the lookout, protecting ourselves. Of course, we have to do that at times, but it’s really good to create the possibility of putting all that to rest.
So we put it to rest in meditation, learning to develop strong samādhi2, strong settledness. Not just to be in a state of bliss or happiness, but to have a state of mind that is then able to come into the changing, shifting river of experience every moment. To be able to see a thought arise, leave it alone, see it go, and appreciate the coming and going of a thought. To see the details of an emotion from a distance. It’s like the weather forecaster who says a rainstorm is coming. It’s just an abstraction. We can see, “Oh, that’s the weather report: I’m a mediocre person. I’m a good person. I’m a bad person.” And realize, “Oh, that’s just a thought that arose, a public service announcement, maybe.” I don’t have to live with that abstraction. Let’s drop down closer and closer.
As we meditate and the meditation becomes clearer and more settled, we see that things are constantly shifting. And that constant shifting is happening in a place of stability. This is the paradox. When we are thinking all the time and agitated, we create these solid concepts of me, myself, and I, and solid concepts of others or the situation we’re in. But when the mind is not agitated, not busy and spinning, but is very quiet, the mind becomes still. Then we see that the experience around us—the sensations, the comings and goings of thoughts and feelings as they’re directly experienced—those are all moving.
To shift from making solidity with our agitated thoughts to quieting our thoughts and our inner life, to be kind of floating or swimming, massaged by the constantly changing present—this is often very pleasant. We feel the relief of being in this simple place.
When we start seeing how sensations, thoughts, ideas, stories, interpretations, and even emotions have this constantly shifting, changing nature, it’s hard to take any individual, simple, momentary experience that comes and goes and say, “That’s who I am.” Just as when the wind blows gently against your cheek, you feel the nice, cool sensation, but you don’t assume, “This is who I really am,” or “This is my breeze.” There’s no self added to it. We start doing that with everything, leaving it alone. We see it doesn’t make sense to take a sensation that arises and identify it as “me.” There’s a kind of clear seeing: “Wow, that’s not self. What a relief.”
As we go deeper and deeper in insight practice, there comes a time where everything that we experience directly, we see, “Oh, that’s not self.” It’s very easy when everything you look at is not self to then generalize and say, “There is no self.” That’s extra. We don’t need to do that. That’s adding complications or stress. Don’t interpret. Just allow it to be: “This is not self.” Enjoy it. Feel the freedom in that, the lack of interpretation, the lack of self-clinging.
This deepest experience of not-self comes from a deep experience of inconstancy, of change and impermanence. Because it’s in the deep experience of change that we appreciate that anything that changes cannot be the self. I don’t have to define myself by it. I should be aware of it, conscious of it, but I don’t have to add this extra layer on top of it.
In ordinary life, there might be times we need to add that extra layer. But to have a vacation from it, to know ourselves without making a self, without attributing a self, without positing a self in any particular detail of the present moment experience, can be a phenomenal relief. It’s a phenomenal way to begin loosening up some of the deepest places of clinging we have, because a lot of our clinging is related to me, myself, and mine.
So the core insight of insight meditation is not an insight that “there is no self,” but rather an insight that “this”—whatever the particularity of the moment is—”this is not self.” As I mentioned in the meditation, you might have an abstract idea of a rainstorm, but once you’re in the rain and you see an individual drop, it doesn’t occur to you that the drop is the storm. It’s just a drop. You hold the drop in your hand, and you don’t say, “This is the storm.” The idea of the storm disappears. I’ve been in storms where I saw it coming and was worried, but when I was in it, it turned out to be safe and kind of fun.
So be careful of your abstractions. Maybe you can find times—in meditation, having a cup of tea, going for a little walk—where you can experiment with being as simple as you can and appreciate seeing whatever occurs as not self. No self needed. Nothing needs to be measured against me, myself, and mine. It’s just the bird singing. It’s just the feet touching the ground. It’s just a thought arising, and it goes.
The insight into not-self is always specific. It’s never a generalization. And may you appreciate how nice it is to not be adding “self” into the mix as we go through the day.
Thank you.
Vipassanā: A Pali word that means “insight” or “clear-seeing.” It refers to the practice of observing reality as it is, without attachment or aversion. ↩
Samādhi: A Pali word for a state of deep meditative concentration or mental collectedness. It is a key component of the Buddhist path, leading to tranquility and clarity. ↩