This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Shedding Snake Skin of Self; Samadhi (60) Letting Go of Unneeded Clinging.. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Guided Meditation: Shedding Snake Skin of Self; Samadhi (60) Letting Go of Unneeded Clinging.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on April 25, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditaiton: Shedding Snake Skin of Self (link)

Hello and welcome to this meditation session that is part of the series on samadhi¹. The last two days, I've emphasized or taught how samadhi can be understood as a progressive process of calming the mind, stilling the mind in a way that leaves the mind not frozen or offline, but leaves it kind of luminously awake and clear, and a kind of a very peaceful, lucid awareness.

Yesterday, I talked about the process of stilling the mind, not just calming it, but letting go of clinging—a progressive process of clinging less and less and less, less contraction, less tightness, less holding on, until there's a feeling of a phenomenal degree of freedom in the mind because it's not disturbed by anything and it's not clenched or held or resisting. It doesn't feel safe, because that's too active to have that feeling and idea, but it's a situation of predominant, pervasive safety that is so safe the idea of safety and danger disappears.

Today, I want to emphasize that samadhi, going through the jhanas², is a progressive stilling, quieting, or releasing, or dropping the activities of the mind that involve "selfing"—that involves taking something, using it to define who I am, commentary about oneself, having concepts and ideas of who I am in some way that we're living in those concepts and ideas, even if they are subconscious and they're not really even part of the conscious thinking mind. We are stilling and quieting even the very subtle activity of "I-am-ness." It's just a feeling, "I am," not "I am" anything in particular. But we'll see as we go into this that the feeling of I-am-ness, that there's a locus, there's a kind of a place or something, kind of a concentrated area of a concentration or a coagulation, a contraction or a pressure point inside that identified "I-am-ness" that seems to be here no matter what, unconditioned by the events of the world. There's still the one who knows, the one who thinks, the one who is.

And oddly enough, because it's so strange from how we normally live our lives, this is an activity of the mind that constructs that, that makes that, and that quiets down. So all the constructions, all the thinking, all the mental formations that have to do around me, myself, and mine, that has to do around "I"—none of that is rejected. There's no philosophy that says that that shouldn't be there. Samadhi has nothing to do with philosophy, nothing to do with beliefs. But rather, samadhi is a deep appreciation that we don't need to do; we can let go of what is stressful in the mind. We can let go of what hinders a kind of natural radiance of mind, the luminosity of mind, perhaps a clarity of mind, a peace of mind. These are all metaphors, rather than looking for exactly these things themselves. Maybe metaphors for something that cannot be discussed so much. The Buddha, in the description, called it a pure, clear mind or a clean and clear mind.

And some of that is the softening, the relaxing of what is often quite active for many people in daily life, which is selfing, referring things to myself and how it affects me and what the self wants. So it's again, it's not something we have to do. It's not a rejection of self. It's not, in a sense, not quite a letting go of self. It's just feeling, sensing through the calming, through understanding clinging, the disturbances of the mind, that the activities of selfing are not needed. And we can just be. We can just be in such a deep way that even the practice of being is too much and falls away.

So, to assume a meditation posture. One of the associations I have with meditation posture is to assume a somewhat dignified, upright posture that somehow allows the body to be expansive. If maybe simply that the chest is a little more open than usual. For people laying down, there's a way of kind of adjusting the back so that if you're on your back, to get the shoulder blades to go down the back a little bit, the shoulders a little bit turned, and the chest a little bit open. Maybe rather than having the hands on the body or just to the side, to have the hands, if you're laying down, kind of open, expansive. Sitting in meditation, I like these days to have my hands on my thighs, the feeling of more openness a little bit, bigger.

And this idea of being bigger in the posture is the idea is to grow bigger than the skin of a snake, the skin that falls off as the snake grows. As we take our bigness, the skin of self can begin to crack and fall off. We don't have to be here with a lot of selfing and self-ideas and comparisons and right and wrong and worthy and not worthy, even thoughts of "I can" and "can't do this." Just become bigger than all of that.

Gently close your eyes. And in a way that maybe you can enjoy, slowly take some deeper breaths, just deep enough so it stays enjoyable. But these deeper breaths again, make your in-breaths make you bigger. Big enough to shed thoughts, ideas, memories, feelings that make you smaller, that keep you small. And as you exhale, a long exhale, imagine all that keeps you small falls away, relaxing the body.

And then letting the breathing return to normal. And continue feeling the body, and on the exhale, relaxing the body. Sometimes when we relax the muscles, they might settle, but they might also expand a bit because they're not held in, clenched. And there's a way of becoming larger. Generally, relaxing the body will relax the mental constructs that we live by. Relaxing the mental constructs relaxes the body.

And then sitting quietly, centering yourself on the breath, maybe resting in the resting place at the end of the exhale, the grounding place. And from there, feeling the expansive quality of the inhale, the return of the exhale, feeling that rhythm as a way of helping the mind settle also and relax.

As you breathe, see if you can feel the tension or pressure, maybe even clenching, that might be associated with the activity of selfing, often manifested in the thoughts that are centered on self. The pressure to think, the tightness to think about things related to me, myself, and mine. Or perhaps the emotional center of some emotions that arise from stories and ideas and experiences that we carry as a concern of me, myself, and mine.

So the center of self in emotions, in thoughts, in the body—feel that as you inhale, and on the exhale, let it fall away. Let it float away. Relax that for these few minutes. The tension, the pressure that is so associated with, that has any association to me, myself, and mine, is not needed. And you can stay large and have the snake skin of self fall away, so that a natural way of being that's free of self-ideas, contractions, feelings, judgments has a chance to open up.

Every exhale, letting go not of self, but any pressure, tension, activity, activation in the body and mind connected to selfing, self-concern, self-assertion, self-imagination. Letting go of it all.

And as we come to the end of the sitting, to feel and sense any way that you feel calmer or more settled than at the beginning, or any way that you are not. In either way, for the last few moments here, let go of anything that is not calm, anything that is not peaceful. Even if it's just letting it recede a bit to the periphery. Let go of holding. Let go of resistance. Let go of pressure. Let go of wanting and not wanting. And as you do so, does that soften any self-concern, self-preoccupation?

And in the middle of it all, maybe there's some feeling, some sense of a clear, clean awareness that takes the form of a radical simplicity. Just to be alive is enough for these few moments. Nothing more is needed. And to sit here quietly, peacefully, allowing the body, the mind to breathe, to exist with nothing extra at the center of awareness. Like an open window that allows sights and sounds to come and go freely. So open awareness, clear, clean awareness, with which you allow yourself to feel, see the people of this world, where that clear seeing is a gift. A gift that you don't impose yourself, your self-ideas, self-assertions, needs, and desires onto others. You don't require them to activate their self, their ideas of self. In your open awareness, all things are allowed to be themselves for a few moments. Just this.

And then connecting it all, a simple goodwill and care that wishes for the well-being of all beings. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Samadhi (60) Letting Go of Unneeded Clinging. (link)

So hello and welcome. This will be the last talk on the samadhi series. The idea is that when I'll be away for three weeks, we have guests coming to replace me, and then when I come back, in a sense, I'll do the second part of this series, which will switch to Vipassanā³, to the clear seeing, to insight. The reason for that, or how this works, is that there's a traditional Buddhist idea that the purpose of samadhi, to go into the jhanas or deep concentrated states, is for the purpose of then at some point coming into a capacity for deep insight, deep seeing.

There's something about the clarity of mind and the softness of the mind, the readiness, malleability of the mind in deep states of meditation that predisposes it to both see clearly but more importantly, to have the mind let go of any clinging which is not needed. I say it that way, "that's not needed," so that's a little bit more welcoming, this idea of letting go. And it's a little bit of a, I don't know, a trick, in that there is no clinging that's needed. But until you know that, don't worry about it. If it's not needed, if you see that, let it go, let it go, let it go.

But the ability to let go, the ability to relax, the ability to calm the overactivated mind is part of what samadhi helps us to do. And so samadhi in Buddhism is not an end in itself but is a means to discovering the end of suffering, a means to let go of what often is impossible to understand how to let go of. There are feelings of distress, dismay, depression, sadness, all kinds of deep emotional pain that people carry that it's inconceivable how this can be let go. "This is who I am, this is the nature of the world, this is the consequence of how I live my life, and this is how I'm stuck." And it certainly can feel like that in ordinary states of mind, and there might not be an avenue in to let go of it in a conscious way. But in this very deep quiet and peace and well-being of samadhi, unusual things begin to happen in terms of the ability to let go, the ability to see clearly, the ability to heal. Samadhi is also a healing phenomenon, and we shouldn't underestimate how significant it is to allow the well-being, the goodness of samadhi to recondition us from the difficult conditioning we've had growing up or through our lives, which can be so deep.

I was really surprised when I sat my long retreats to get the mind so still and quiet, kind of going into the deepest places of my mind, and find that there were things I was attached to that I had no idea I was attached to. And one of my thoughts was, kind of in surprise about it all, was, "How did I let those people into my mind that deeply?" And that doesn't make any sense for them to have occupied, taken up space in that depth of my mind that is so personal. That's a place that, you know, where I should be free. I shouldn't be caught, I shouldn't be preoccupied with these people, these kinds of activities. That's kind of like being possessed in some way.

So, samadhi really helps. We go through this process of samadhi, of the deepening stability of mind, deepening the settledness of mind, deepening the unification of mind, deepening the calming of the mind, filling out into the vast centeredness, simplicity. And that simplicity matures in the fourth jhana, where it's radically simple. One of the things that comes into highlight better and more as we go deeper into samadhi is when selfing, when attachment to self in any kind of way—attachment to self-image, attachment to ideas of self, attachment to what the self needs, what's right, what's wrong with self, any kind of attachment to emotions connected to self, thoughts, judgment—we start seeing them in more highlight, and we see that they're not needed. We see how they diminish us, how they disturb us, how they, in a certain kind of way, take us away from a deep intimacy with ourselves (if we use that word "self" all the time). So it's almost like preoccupation with self takes us away from the self. Preoccupation of self takes us away from a deeper intimacy with who we are. It's a little bit, oddly enough, too much preoccupation in self, caught up in self—for example, in extreme diversion, narcissism, or heavy-duty conceit, delusions of grandeur—is in fact an alienation from self, and then losing touch with ourselves in that process.

So in deep samadhi, we start seeing how this works, and we see we're better off to let go, let go, and not to have any preoccupation with self. The metaphor in the fourth jhana, I kind of see as expressing this to me in a nice way, is a person who sits covered from head down with a white cloth. So there's no part of their whole body that is not covered by that white cloth. No part of the whole body is not covered or filled with a clean, clear mind. And what I like about this idea of being covered with a cloth is that the details of a person are not seen. Someone walking by, they don't see their physical characteristics very well. A lot of the details of who they are, what their gender is, all kinds of things about the person are not seen, but you see the general outline, just "this is a human being there."

And it's not just others, but also ourselves. We're not caught up anymore with our particular physical characteristics or our particular emotional capacities or particular mental activities or what our thoughts do. These recede and settle away. And so there's this beautiful feeling of a piece of cloth that's very, very clean, un-tarnished, beautiful, letting a beautiful sunlight come through that's very peaceful and clear, that without even ourselves seeing all the details that we've been so caught up in, maybe for a lifetime. And so there's much less self in these deep jhanas. And because of that, there's insight to seeing when self arises, to see the idea of self, and you see very clearly that's just an idea, that's just a thought. The thought doesn't really represent what's really most intimate, deeper, more fuller, more true about what's here in this lived life. And then there might be a letting go.

So with the fourth jhana in particular, we are ready for this insight part of the practice. So when I return in three weeks, we'll start with that journey together, just as we've done this journey with samadhi. And you don't have to have experienced the fourth jhana for this. That is not what I've been expecting through this series, but I wanted to give you a feel for it, a sense for it. For some of you, it might be relevant someday, or it is already. Some of you, it might just kind of help you trust this process and understand the process and the principles of letting go, of being settled and steady and unified. You don't have to go into jhana, but it will help you be prepared to go through something similar through the Vipassanā insight practice. There is a corollary to samadhi jhana in doing deep insight work, and that's called insight jhana, Vipassanā jhana. And so we'll have the chance to talk about that a little bit when I return.

So I want to thank you all very, very much for coming along for these 60 talks on samadhi, and I hope that this has been supportive for you and made it interesting for you, this world of samadhi. Some of you maybe are novices to it, and rather than making you experts at samadhi, my wish is that this series has helped you have a deeper appreciation for this body-mind-heart, a deeper appreciation of the natural processes that are at play here, processes that samadhi helps us to trust more deeply. And so I hope that that helps you settle, be more settled in yourself, more appreciative of yourself, more, have greater faith in the process of mindfulness, samadhi, meditation, and being present for this life that we live.

May this serve for the benefit of all beings. So thank you, and I do look forward to beginning the next series.