This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Seeing Clearly; New Vision (2) Opening the Dharma Eye. 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 and welcome to our meditation. One of the primary reference points for the activity of mindfulness practice in the early Buddhist tradition, the teachings of the Buddha, is the use of sight. It’s used not as literal using the physical eyes, but kind of the inner eye. Sometimes, one of the best English equivalents might be to perceive that which we can perceive or observe within us. We can observe that we’re thinking. We can observe or perceive that there are feelings, sensations.
And there are a lot of ways in which seeing is emphasized. Sometimes in other world religions, someone is a seer. That’s their specialty. They really see deeply into life. In Buddhism, Vipassanā1 means to see clearly, or to see in. ‘Vi’ is an emphatic prefix and ‘passanā’ means to see.
One of the powerful uses of the word seeing or the inner eye is that at some point in practice, a practitioner opens the dharma2 eye. The inner eye has been closed, and then at some point, we open and we see clearly. The idea is that in ordinary ways of perceiving, we don’t see clearly because we don’t know what to look for. We don’t know what to see in the present moment. And also, in the seeing, we have layers of filters over our eyes so that we don’t see what’s there directly. We see the filters, or we see the projections we put on top of things more than the thing itself.
The remarkable thing about seeing is ordinarily we don’t interfere with what we see. The seeing doesn’t interfere. The seeing doesn’t try to fix or try to push away or try to grab a hold of. Those things are happening deeper in the mind, but the seeing itself is just seeing things as they are. And so we’re looking for this capacity, in a sense, to settle back and allow the inner perceiving to occur without extra interpretation, meaning-making, values, or associations put on top of it.
In doing so, we begin to see the changing nature of the present moment, to see the comings and goings, how that part of life is always changing. And there’s something profound that happens when we put aside all our ideas but rest or abide in the dharma eye, abide in the seeing where there is no object or subject. There’s no there or here. There’s simply this simple act of observation happening from that place where we can’t distinguish between the object being seen and the subjective experience of sight. The two arise together in our direct experience.
So, assume a meditation posture and gently close your eyes.
In whatever easy way you have, open your inner perception to perceive, to see what is happening for you in a way that perceives without judgment, needs, wants, and aversions. For a few moments, be curious. What is your capacity to perceive, to know, to observe in the simplest possible way, where everything is allowed to be there as it is in its present moment simplicity, without a past and a future? Just a thought, just a feeling of the moment, a sensation.
Can you experiment with opening that inner eye to see in an innocent way, to see without agenda? Just for a few moments more, just to observe and be with things as they are.
And then within your body, take some gentle, fuller breaths. Breathing in and exhaling. Breathing in as fully as is comfortable and nice, and on the exhaling, relaxing parts of your body, relaxing the whole body.
Letting your breathing return to normal.
As you continue to breathe, on the inhale, find some place in your body that has some tension or holding. On the exhale, relax, soften, without ambition to do it well. Just lightly, a light softening in the body.
A light softening in the mind. Feeling the tensions in the mind as you breathe in, and a softening as you exhale.
And then feeling and sensing the body’s experience of breathing. On the inhale, notice if there is anything associated with tension or holding in your breathing, and know it very simply, not seeing it as a problem. And as you exhale, soften that part of your breathing, also with no ambition to do it well. Or notice the tension in breathing as you exhale, and maybe there’s a way of softening that area as you inhale.
And as you do this, also notice if the way that you’re practicing, the way you’re aware, has any tension or pressure in it. And if it does, feel that as you inhale, soften it as you exhale.
And then as if you’re opening your inner eye, your dharma eye, opening to a clarity of perception, to the radical simplicity of present moment experience. The part of the present moment that the mind is not thinking about in relationship to the past and the future, where we’re not projecting our judgments and associations. Relaxing backwards to simply sit back and observe, as if everything in its own nature is very, very simple.
Like you’re laying back watching the clouds drift and shapeshift in the sky. Settle back and observe the drifting, shifting sensations, experiences as they come and go in the present moment.
In the most simple way to observe, there is no self-concern, no reference back to me, myself, and mine. Seeing, observing is this radically simple act of clarity to what is happening now, whatever it might be.
There is clear seeing of the simplicity of this moment. A seeing that can also know how we make it more complicated than it has to be with judgments, me, myself, and mine, being pulled into thoughts. Whatever complications you add to it, see that clearly too. See it as present moment phenomena, nothing to fix or change.
And then as we come to the end of the sitting, with maturity in practice, a practitioner has what’s called in Pāli, dassana3, and in Sanskrit, darśana. In modern India, darśana often means seeing or viewing the teacher. In this Buddhist tradition, dassana is seeing the present clearly, seeing the dharma, seeing the arising and passing of phenomena. Something about seeing the changing nature of experience is as invaluable in Buddhism as is seeing a teacher in other Indian religions. We are looking to be in the presence of the dharma in our own direct experience.
Opening the dharma eye, opening the clarity of perception, and then using that clarity to gaze upon the world kindly, to gaze upon the world clearly, and letting that clarity be an uncomplicated channel for kindness, goodwill, care, and love. So we can live inspired to wish well-being to others.
May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.
And may they at least be free from all the extra baggage we carry with us in how we view them. May our seeing be free of how we project onto others.
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to the second talk of this series called “New Vision,” having a new vision through Buddhist practice. The practices of samādhi4 and the practice of insight prepare the ground for being able to see in a new way. Mostly, what that means is to see with the clarity that comes when we don’t have filters of projections, judgments, commentary, past associations, hurts, or desires that go into the very act of seeing.
It’s interesting to go about daily life and notice the times we lock our physical eyes to stare at something, to be searching for something, to be studying something because we’re afraid of it. And to contrast that with times that the physical eyes are at ease, floating in their sockets, gazing upon something in the present moment, allowing the present moment objects to just be what they are as they’re seen, independent of our associations, meaning-making, projections into the future; independent of what it means for me, myself, and I; independent of preferences; independent of our impatience and our to-do list. Just taking a Sabbath for a few minutes to just be present and observe the experiences of here and now.
In the dharma, there comes a time when the mind is concentrated, stable in the present moment. The mind is soft and pliable and workable. Workable in the sense that yes, if we want to be in the present moment, we can stay there, deeply at ease, deeply with a sense of well-being. So there’s no hurry, nothing to do, nothing to get, nothing to be, and just to be here.
At some point, there’s a dramatic or very significant moment that’s called opening the dharma eye. And this is now seeing in a way, seeing with tremendous clarity, where in a sense we see for ourselves the dharma. Yesterday, I emphasized the tremendous value of seeing non-clinging and to know the ever-present quality or aspect of non-clinging that can be a reference point for practicing and for going about our life.
However, one of the things we know is not just what we see—seeing non-clinging—but also what we know. Liberation in Buddhism is described sometimes as knowing and seeing. And what we know is what we see as a result of this opening of the dharma eye. I want to read to you a frequent, kind of formulaic passage in the suttas that describes how someone becomes a stream-enterer, the first stage of maturity in freedom.
The Buddha was talking to a layperson named Upāli5, and this is how the text goes:
Then the Buddha gave the layperson Upāli progressive instruction, that is, a talk on giving, on generosity, a talk on virtue, a talk on the heavens. And the Buddha explained to him the danger of sensual pleasures and the blessings of renunciation. When he knew that the householder’s mind was ready, receptive, free from hindrances, elated and confident, he provided to him the teaching special to the Buddhas: suffering, its arising, its cessation, and the path.
Just as a clean cloth with all spots removed would take dye evenly, so too while the householder Upāli sat there, the spotless, immaculate vision of the Dharma arose in him. And he exclaimed, “All that is subject to arising is subject to cessation.”
Then the householder Upāli saw the dharma, attained the dharma, understood the dharma, fathomed the dharma. He crossed beyond doubt, did away with perplexity, became fearless, and became independent of others in the Buddha’s teachings.
It’s a remarkable description of this process of someone having this moment of initial freedom, seeing clearly for himself. And what he sees is that suffering, the emotional pain, is something that comes and goes, arises and passes, rather than seeing it as a big, knotted-up fist. That suffering, if we’re really still and quiet, maybe elated, maybe happy, maybe settled and happy to be in the present moment, not impatient, not trying to make something happen, really settled here, then something begins opening up in our sight.
One of those things is we see that the sense of solidity of suffering has a lot to do with our reactivity to it, our involvement with it, or incessant thinking and relating to it. If we allow it, leave it radically alone, don’t try to fix it, don’t try to judge it, with no past and future, at some point when the mind has these wonderful qualities—ready, receptive, free from the hindrances, elated and confident—that’s not an easy mind to have. You can’t just sit down and expect to have it the first time you meditate. But to have done the homework of developing a real steadiness, stability, samādhi, to have done the initial preparation of learning to really know how to see clearly enough to start having insight into the three insights that I’ve talked about, there comes a time when the mind really lets go in a deep enough way of its projections, its associations, its engagement, its reactivity, that we see something remarkable.
It might be very hard to appreciate unless you can really have this experience, but we see that the suffering is like a fist that opens and closes. It’s there and then it releases. And in that movement, in the release of the fist, the hand can finally relax. In the coming and going of our suffering, in the going of it, when it’s not there for a moment in our direct experience, we see that there is a deep rest.
And now we know. Someone who has opened the dharma eye knows how freeing it is to see the changing nature of present moment experience, to see that things come and go, that things are impermanent, in flux, in constant coming and going. And of course, if we lose touch of that and we lock in again and think, “this is how things are,” then we enter back into the world of suffering. But there’s something about settling back and having the dharma eye that can see and understand the changing nature of phenomena, that can know that this is the way forward. This is where freedom can be found. It’s not found every time. It’s not so easy. But to keep coming back to it and be inspired to know this is where real freedom is found.
If I want darśana, if I want to really be in the presence of what is sacred in the Buddhist language, we’re present for something which cannot seem so exciting, not seem so ultimate, not seem so dramatic, because we’re not being somehow zapped by something. There’s not a power coming from outside of us. Rather, we see in such a way that the mind begins to release, the fist relaxes, and what do we see? We see the inconstant, changing nature of experience.
In this particular passage, the translator calls it the “spotless, immaculate vision of the dharma” that arose in him. In other places, it’s called the opening of the dharma eye, the eye that can see the dharma. This gives us a new vision, and the new vision is how invaluable it is to really abide in, to rest in, to know, to stay close to the inconstant, changing nature of present moment experience.
I’m fairly confident that for many of you listening to this, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. It seems maybe kind of simplistic given how complicated life is. But you might, over the next 24 hours, just provisionally or with some degree of willingness, stay close to noticing how much things are always changing. Light, temperature, people, activities, feelings, sensations in the body, thoughts. Just notice, “Oh, it’s changed. It’s changed again. It’s changed again.” Don’t expect to see ongoing change, that might be a little bit harder, but at least know, “Oh, look, it’s changed again. Look at that, it’s changed. It’s changed.”
And what happens to you when you notice that there’s been change over and over again? Does that free you in some way?
So, the dharma eye. Thank you. We’ll continue tomorrow.
Vipassanā: A Pāli word that means “insight” or “clear-seeing.” It is a form of meditation that involves observing reality as it is, without attachment or aversion. ↩
Dharma: (In Buddhism) The teaching or religion of the Buddha. It can also refer to the cosmic law and order, or the nature of reality. ↩
Dassana: A Pāli word for “seeing” or “vision,” often referring to the direct perception of the Dharma. The Sanskrit equivalent is Darśana. The original transcript said “poly dasana” and “darana daran,” which have been corrected based on context. ↩
Samādhi: A Pāli word for a state of meditative consciousness or concentration. It is a state of deep mental stillness and clarity. ↩
Upāli: A prominent lay disciple of the Buddha, known for his mastery of the Vinaya, the monastic code of conduct. ↩