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Guided Meditation: Sensing Self; Insight (27) Sensing Self as an Activity.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on July 29, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Hello and welcome to our meditation. This week, the overall topic is the insight into not-self. But before we can have insight into not-self, it's important to have insight into how we experience self. So rather than asking, "What is a self?" or "Is there a self?" we begin by asking, "How do we experience ourselves?"

When we're doing something like meditating, what is the doer? What does it feel like? What's the experience of the one who does? Is there a center of gravity? Is there a locus, a place inside where the doer operates, where the doer is felt—not necessarily found as if there's something to find, but as something to experience? Is there pressure, tension? Is there energy activated, some sensations of activation?

There's the self as doer, the self as feeler—the one who feels things. And at one end of that feeling spectrum, the self as victim, the one that things are being done to. There's the self as the thinker, the solver. There's the self as the fearful one, the angry one. There's the self as the curious one or the delighted one. There are all these different ways in which the feeling self, the thinking self operates. The idea is not to deny that self, not to get philosophical about it, but rather to feel experientially into that experience. What is it like?

And is there, as we talked yesterday, tension associated with it, pressure, or is there a kind of contraction or coalescing of some kind of activated energy with it? And then to just be with it, hold it, sense it. Ideally, we do this without being the sensor, being the holder of that self. But if we do, that's fine. Then you have one more self to sense and feel your way into. What is this like? And then to relax.

To begin, assume a meditation posture, a posture that provides you with some sense of stability. If you're sitting, sit up a little bit straighter. If you're lying down, maybe there's a way of adjusting the area around your shoulder blades, your shoulders, where your hands are. Maybe drawing up your feet so that the knees are bent provides a greater sense of stability or rootedness.

Gently close your eyes.

Often, I begin these meditations by suggesting you take a deep breath, which encourages a sense of the doer, of the one who makes the deep breaths. You can still be the doer in some ways, but rather than being in front of your breath or directing your breath, feel first how the breathing breathes itself. Sometimes if you pause ever so slightly at the end of the exhale, you can feel the pull, the desire to breathe, and then you can give into it.

Rather than directing your breathing to breathe more deeply, follow the inhale. Follow it and allow it to grow as much as it will. As you exhale, allow the exhale to do itself. There's a release, a letting go, and you follow it, allowing it to exhale as much as it wants. No hurry.

As you allow the exhale, allow the whole body to participate in the exhale by relaxing, softening the body. As you allow the release of exhaling, relax tension in your mind. Soften the mind, maybe dissolving the edges of the mind.

Whatever attention or focus or energy that goes into participating with your thinking, take that attention, energy, and focus and offer it to the breathing instead. Let the thinking kind of recede into the background.

If while you're meditating you can feel, sense the feeling of self, the sensations of selfing, the locus in your body or your mind that's activated or energized, it can help you feel or sense the feeling of being the doer of meditation, being the thinker of thoughts, being the receiver of experiences. There are many kinds of flavors of self that we can be involved in.

And does it have any kind of locus within you? It's probably not in your toes or your fingernails. It might not be below your knees. It might be somewhere in the torso or the head. It might be in some quadrant of the head. Feel and sense into the locus of the self who is engaged and activated, the doer. Take time to breathe with it, breathe through it. And in the rhythm of breathing, stay close to that so you don't get pulled into too many thoughts or collapse into that self or react to it. But feel it, sense it. The sensations that are activated.

If there is some location in your body that in some specific or general way is the place the self operates, how big is that? How small is it? Is there any movement in the energy or activation? A swirling or a pushing or a pulling? Is the locus of self a little more dense, more contracted than the surrounding areas?

See if you can let your thinking mind become very quiet, so you have a greater capacity to sense and feel the sensations of self. For this exploration, consider that self is an activity, an action of the mind, not a thing that's fixed or stationary. Feel the activity, feel the activation. And if there's any tension, when you're ready, relax. Soften.

If you're aware of the locus of self, of what's activated in you that provides the feeling, the sense of there being a self here in you, feel your way beyond the edges of that locus, that place. Maybe feeling the space that's beyond the edges, the softness, the openness. And as you exhale, letting the sensations of self dissolve into the space and openness.

As we come to the end of this sitting, feel your way, feel in some way how you can be with the world, with others, not with a steward, not with a selfing, not centered in this locus of self, but rather be with the world with openness, a spaciousness. Almost as if everything that you see and hear can pass right through you; it doesn't have to land anywhere or strike anything.

And in that openness, spaciousness, there can be friendliness, care, kindness, compassion. We can be open, spacious, and gaze upon the world kindly, wishing it well.

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

And may each of our capacity to not cling, to not hold tight and close down, be a support for the freedom of everyone.

May all beings be free.

Hello and welcome to this second talk on the insight into not-self. Rather than addressing the topic of not-self directly, it's important to know what we're talking about when we talk about self. And not just to know about it, but to have a direct experience of what we're talking about, so that the whole topic of not-self becomes experiential more than philosophical.

In Buddhism, in our circles, we often can use the word "selfing." It's a verb, and it points to the idea that whatever sense, feeling, or ideas we have of self, it's a creation. It's an activity. It's something that arises from our doing now, as opposed to self being a thing, a fixed self, a universal self. This idea that "this is what the self is. I'm this way. I've always been this way," or "now because X happened to me, now I'm this way." To see it as an activity, not a thing, to see it as an activity and not a fixed state or fixed phenomenon, is the orientation we have.

To begin to appreciate this, it helps to see if you can feel and sense that activity of selfing. It's not always easy to do, but one way to start is to get to know the locus of self, meaning the place inside that's activated, that somehow is energized, or some place that feels like who we are—our actions, our thoughts, our sense of self—resides in some place in our body or some place in space.

For quite a few people, partly because the self is very much associated with the thinking mind, the thinker, many people will point to their head, the upper part of the head, maybe the cerebral cortex, the front of the brain. It feels like there's a place, and the more you look to find the exact location, the more slippery it is. But from a little bit of distance, it can feel like there's a little place of activation, of energy, of swirling, that maybe feels more solid or dense than other places. Maybe a place where there's a little pressure or tension. The idea is to feel those sensations and not get sidetracked by the philosophy or the justification. Questions like, "Yes, there is a self," or "We have to have a self. How do we take care of ourselves if we don't have a self?" Those are all questions we don't have to address right now. Rather, we start becoming familiar with the way that selfing operates within us.

Part of the value of that is that if selfing is an activity and not a thing or a state, and there are many factors that contribute to how that activity operates, some of them are unfortunate. Some of them bring us a lot of suffering. Some of them have a certain kind of pain or tension or stress involved in them. Some of them come along with beliefs that are not so healthy for us. Some of them come along with beliefs that are not healthy for other people as we assert ourself onto others.

So, take time to get to know this activity of selfing, the activity of this locus, this place, and start feeling the qualities of it, the characteristics of it, and not get sidetracked by what it is, but rather how it is. For some people, it's in the brain area. It can be anywhere. Some people who are more identified with their emotions might feel it more in their torso, maybe in the heart center. Some cultures point to their heart as a place of the self. I think for many people growing up in Western culture, they might point to their head, but maybe different cultures have a different sense or feeling of where they are, and because of that, that's what gets activated. That's where the action is of selfing.

I've had the experience of this little self, this little kernel of tension or pressure, which I associate with myself, sometimes being just a little bit in front of me. If I'm operating in desire, wanting to get someplace, wanting something, to do something, it's almost like I've projected myself a few inches in front of my head. And that's where the self is. Sometimes when I'm really peaceful and relaxed, it feels like the whole selfing thing kind of recedes into the back of the head and feels more at ease and restful. Sometimes it feels tense, and sometimes I've had headaches because I'm so caught up in some concern and preoccupation, and that sense of self is really powerful and hard and strong. Other times it's wispy and light, and I couldn't really find a location for it exactly, except that it's somewhere peacefully, openly, maybe somewhere above my neck, but I can't pinpoint it.

The idea is to start becoming aware of what this is like without answering the philosophical question, "Is there a self?" Because if the activity of selfing is bringing us distress, bringing us tension, bringing us stress, then maybe that can be addressed. We don't have to have a self that's inherently stressful, inherently tense, inherently carrying the burdens of the world on its shoulders. It doesn't mean we are passive. It doesn't mean that we don't do things. But what it allows is for the doing, the doing self, to come from a very different place, a place where there is no tension.

There's nothing wrong with having some selfing. Nothing wrong with having some sense or understanding of identity, some sense of "me," and having a location for that within us. It's maybe even appropriate to have it to some degree. But we don't have to be locked into it. We don't have to be fixated on it and hold on to it, thinking, "This is how it always has to be."

There are times when I've been coming out of meditation especially where I can see the birth of 10,000 selves. In the first two or three minutes after meditation, I see little different kinds of selves that get born depending on what my eye falls on. "I want that," "I don't like that," or "Maybe I should fix that." And for each of those, I can feel almost like a different part of the brain or the body is activated, and a different sense of who the self is depending on the context and situation. Someone comes to the door, and now I'm the greeter. The greeting self is a very different self than the one that finds that there's a mess in the kitchen and now I have to fix it, and one more time there's a mess. It's really fascinating to see the kaleidoscope shifting and changing of selves. It doesn't mean that we have no well-developed self to do things in the world. It means that we are aware of the shifting, changing nature of this activity of selfing.

This is actually considered very good news in Buddhism—that self is an activity, not a thing—because then it can be changed. It can be adjusted. It can be guided. The activity of so-called selfing can be done in healthier and unhealthy ways. And so there's room for shifting and changing and settling and letting go of some of the tension that is inherent in it, all without answering the question, "Is there or is there not a self?" Let that take care of itself. What we can take care of is how we are engaged in selfing so that there's no tension associated with it. And it's fascinating what happens when there's no tension, what happens when there's no congealing or densing around something.

One of the things that can happen, and this is from the teachings of the Buddha, is that when things in the world happen to us, they don't activate that hard self, the contracted self, the reactive self. The Buddha uses the analogy of an army going into battle. Someone carries the banner of the army, the banner of the country that represents them. And apparently, that person and that flag are particularly vulnerable to attack. As long as we have the flag up, then we can be attacked. The idea is to lower the flag of selfing. Don't wave it around so much, because then we can get around fine, but there's nothing that the arrows can hit, nothing that the spears can be thrown at, because the flag is down.

Here, the flag—it's a little bit of a violent metaphor—is the solidified, hard, fixed idea of self that things can hit. But if the self is porous, soft, relaxed, spacious, then things can go right through, and we don't have to use it as an occasion to do even more selfing, more tense selfing.

So I hope these ideas are interesting for you as a basis for you to explore. The way that I'm offering these teachings now, yesterday and today, is not to answer philosophical questions and not to make clear statements like "there is a self" or "there is no self," but rather for us to really begin experiencing and exploring what this activity of selfing is. Where's the location of it within ourselves? Is it a shifting location? Is there tension involved in it? Is there contraction? Has it become kind of like a shield from which we operate? What is it?

And then what I'm hoping for the next 24 hours is that you just keep exploring this, feeling, sensing, and maybe you have occasion to talk to friends about this. Maybe just some of the conversations around, "Where's the place of self? What are the experience and sensations of selfing like, and how does it shift and change over time, over the day, over the hours?" Talk about it, explore it, get to know it, and then we'll continue tomorrow.

Thank you.