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Guided Meditation: Open Spaciousness; Dharmette: Ten Reflections (4 of 10) Autonomy - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on April 25, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Open Spaciousness

Welcome to our Thursday morning meditation.

There is a famous saying: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, is there a sound? Part of the image for me is that when the tree falls, whatever vibration of the air that occurs travels. It moves through the forest unimpeded until it meets the ear of some creature, vibrates the ear drums, and then there is what we call sound. But until then, the sound moves through space unimpeded.

Freedom in Buddhism has a quality of being unimpeded, like a bird moving through the sky. However, it is an odd kind of "unimpeded." It isn't a freedom to do whatever we want to do, which is often how freedom is associated. It is primarily a freedom from impediment—from picking things up, fueling things, being involved with things, being involved with desires and aversions.

It is also freedom with thoughts. Thinking can happen; there can be a thought. But for the thought to become thinking, there has to be some engagement with it, some involvement, some picking it up, some participation, or some associated thinking that builds on it.

To be free in the mind is to create a vast space where things are unimpeded, so that a thought can arise like a bird or a cloud in the sky—it just drifts by and fades away. Cognition or knowing arises almost pre-verbally, almost like a sound in the woods that no one hears. There is just space. There is no clinging, no resistance, no picking up, no judgments, no reaction. Just vast space.

Freedom in Buddhism is a freedom from clinging, resisting, and judging. The freedom from what is created is often associated with vast space. As we sit today in meditation, maybe there is some way to partially—maybe not fully, but in some small way—have a sense of this kind of freedom. Freedom from self-definition, freedom from our past and our future, freedom from being someone or not being someone, freedom from being right or being wrong.

There is a sense of space where there is room for things to occur without any involvement with them. It can be seen as profoundly respectful of each individual, unique phenomenon that arises. We allow it to be itself. We don't fuel it; we don't get involved with it. We just let it be. The more free we are, things just move through us like a river moves through a riverbed—it just keeps flowing by.

Assume a meditation posture. Find a posture where you feel unimpeded in simple ways. You can loosen the belt around your waist if it is tight. Make sure your clothes are loose, not constricting your body in any way. Adjust your legs, your knees, your hands, and your elbows so they all feel a little loose and light. When I was first taught Zen, I was taught to be like a chicken and flap my elbows so we really keep the elbows unfrozen and untight.

Gently close your eyes and relax your body. Soften around the body.

Breathing, follow the exhale to the very end of the exhale and wait, however briefly, for the inhale to begin on its own. Allow the inhale to be what it is, as unimpeded as is easy to do. At the top of the inhale, let there be a release with the beginning of the exhale.

With the exhale, let there be a release or relaxing of the thinking mind. Acknowledge any pressure or force in the thinking mind to be thinking, and if you can, on the exhale, relax that pressure.

If there is pressure, force, or power in certain emotions that were born in the past or concern the future, on the exhale see if you can relax and release that force.

Let the inhale be a time to make space—room for the inhale to simply arise here and now, unimpeded in a space where there are no distractions. Just the inhale.

Find wherever in your body there is a soft stillness. It doesn't have to be dramatic. Is there some place of soft stillness? In the softness, in the stillness, there is no reactivity, judgments, or involvement in anything. Whatever else is going on around it or beyond it is allowed to occur without that soft stillness being agitated.

Maybe there, in that soft stillness, is some freedom. The kind of freedom where there is space for all things without getting involved.

With every inhale and exhale, that soft stillness expands and grows outwards, making space within which all things can occur—like clouds in the sky, like water in the river, drifting by unimpeded.

[Silence]

Perhaps where there is a soft stillness or an open spaciousness, however mild those might be in you, can they be a reference for allowing whatever occurs to occur freely without any resistance or involvement? Like a sound in the forest where there are no ears to hear, or water flowing through a river without any resistance. Where there is no building of self, defending self, asserting self, or being a self.

Even where, in some radical way, we can just allow ourselves to be as we are. A freedom of just ourselves without needing to work at anything. That is maybe a profound form of respect: allowing each thing to be itself without appropriating it by our desires, our aversions, or our preferences.

In doing that for ourselves, does it teach you something about how to offer that to others? To allow each person to have the experience of being known and seen without our projections, our preferences, our expectations, or our ideas of how they should be or shouldn't be. A profound gift of respect. Each thing, each person is allowed to be themselves.

There is so much space within us that there is nothing to be afraid of. There is nothing that can be threatened in that soft stillness that has room for all things.

From that kind of soft stillness and open spaciousness—with that kind of freedom—good will has a very powerful impact. It is clean. It is clear. It is just a goodness, a kindness that allows people to be as they are, where they feel our respect and good will.

May this practice we do support us to look upon all beings with profound respect through the eyes and ears of our own inner freedom.

May all beings be free. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be safe. May all beings be happy.

And may our ability to smile convey this for others.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Ten Reflections (4 of 10) Autonomy

Hello and welcome to the fourth of the ten reflections that this series is focused on. The fourth one is autonomy.

To review, yesterday the reflection was on a sense of agency. First meaning, then purpose, and then with that, it makes sense to act in the world. The ability to act—to have agency to act according to what is important for us, our values, and our sense of purpose—is an essential human need. When that is inhibited, broken, made difficult, or denied, it is profoundly difficult for a human being. To support people in their agency and empowerment is one of the gifts that we can offer others: to believe in people, to have confidence in them. Some people grew up without anyone believing in them and their capacity.

The fourth reflection is autonomy. Autonomy is very important in hospitals and medical situations. Doctors are constantly supposed to think about how to respect the autonomy of the patient, meaning their ability to make decisions for themselves. I think we have a profound need to feel like we have a choice, that the choice is not taken away from us by other people who choose for us. We need to not be limited and oppressed by other people's choices, but to be respected for our ability to make a choice and do things for ourselves.

In thinking about this, I think about growing up from birth to old age. Before we are born, gestating in our mother, everything is done for us. But when we are born, we start breathing for ourselves, and soon thereafter start digesting food for ourselves. Slowly, as we grow up, we are able to do more and more things for ourselves. We are able to sit up, stand up, and walk for ourselves without someone having to carry us. At some point, we are able to go to the bathroom by ourselves, clean ourselves, and shower for ourselves. At some point, we are able to use forks and spoons and feed ourselves. At some point, we are able to take the bus by ourselves to school, go to the store, or walk down the street to a friend's house without someone accompanying us.

It is a slow process of growing up, of greater and greater autonomy—doing things for ourselves. Something profoundly problematic happens if that growth of autonomy is curtailed as we grow up. Some people are not given a chance to grow up because they have people who are constantly doing things for them, taking care of everything for them, and protecting them so they can't really go out and experience that possibility of finding their own way in the world.

A healthy growing up is a greater and greater capacity for autonomy until finally—at least classically in modern culture—we leave home, go off and start our own home someplace else, move away from our parents, or go to college. One of the milestones is sometimes when our parents can't take care of themselves, and we now have the strength, the ability, and the autonomy to be the one who cares for them.

At some point, as we are dying, some people find that it is wonderful to have loved ones around. Some people prefer to die alone. But dying is a profoundly personal thing that we go through. To have the capacity to really have grown and developed over the course of a lifetime to enter into the dying process with a very healthy sense of "this is just me, this is my process," and be able to follow through with some confidence in letting go and clarity, is significant.

Discovering and having autonomy is really important. There are things we cannot expect other people to do for us. Unless we are sick, we generally don't ask other people to shower us or perform basic bodily functions for us. There are things we have to do ourselves. There is a profound human need for autonomy. Where we don't have it, it is a problem. Where we do have it, how to have a healthy sense of autonomy is a very important thing to reflect on and explore.

It gets complicated in some subcultures of the United States where individualism has a lot to do with self-assertion, building a self, and asserting a self. Spiritual freedom is sometimes confused with a freedom to assert our desires, get what we want, "seize the day," be ourselves, or assert ourselves on social media to be someone for others. There are so many ways in which to be "free" to do that is actually harmful for the people who are doing it. It is reinforcing something unwholesome, reinforcing an attachment, a clinging, a delusion, or even a fantasy.

The strong need for autonomy gets confused sometimes with the strong impulse to get our desires and attachments met, or to assert ourselves in some way.

In Buddhism, autonomy is not about assertion. It is something different. It is something very profound: not interfering, not grasping, not adding pressure or judgments or ideas of right and wrong, but allowing each thing that arises to arise freely without feeding it, without getting involved in it, without fueling it.

To discover this kind of autonomy gives autonomy to each thing that arises. We become the giver of autonomy, not the taker. We have a certain autonomy because we are free. We don't resist anything, we don't hold on to anything, and we aren't pushing anything away. We are more like open space where things can just go right through. Nothing lands on our identity. Nothing lands on the way in which we have built up a sense of self or hold on to some sense of self. We can still be completely who we are; in some ways, you could say we can be more fully who we are when we are not trying to build and assert who we are.

To find this profound place of autonomy—of freedom from other people's projections, judgments, and prejudice—and to find an inner place where we are free from that, is a powerful way of not exactly fighting what people do to us, but not giving in to it. Not participating in it. In that way, we may be standing against it, but not assertively. We don't give in to what other people are pushing on us or demanding of us, but we also don't need to assert ourselves in that process. We can just have confidence in our capacity to be free in that moment.

To discover a kind of autonomy that is non-resistance, non-clinging, and non-assertion is beautiful because we can be fully who we are, but at the same time, we don't have to be anybody. We can be space for all things without being in conflict with anything—as I began the week discussing non-contention¹.

I am offering you my reflections on this. I am not saying that this is the best way for anyone to understand these concepts. I want to give you just enough orientation around this topic of autonomy that you can grapple with it for yourself. Consider and explore what it might mean for you. Maybe even come up with a different word, a synonym that is more meaningful for you.

I think it is a very significant concept to use to reflect on yourself. How does this work? What is your autonomy? Where do you feel you don't have autonomy, choice, or agency? Where do you feel like it is really good to have some sense of independence?

Or, to say it more subtly using Buddhist language: rather than independence, Buddhism talks about nondependence². Where do you have a place of nondependence on anything? The subtle difference is that sometimes in America, "independence" can be interpreted as independent enough to assert ourselves. Nondependence means that we are free.

Autonomy is a central ethical principle—one of the three or four central ethical principles in American medical practice. It is a very important concept in our society as a whole. It is well worth grappling with or considering this topic. It is certainly an important follow-up to the idea of agency: to have autonomy in our ability to act as we see is necessary and important for us, and autonomy to practice the Dharma³.

Maybe you will consider it today and reflect on this in different ways, including talking to friends about it. We will continue tomorrow with what follows from this, which is the concept of identity—a little bit of a "hot topic" for Buddhists.

Thank you very much, and I wish you well with your reflections.