This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Simplicity; Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (19) Simplicity of Non-Clinging. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.
Guided Meditation: Simplicity; Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (19) Simplicity of Non-Clinging - Gil Fronsdal
The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 28, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Guided Meditation: Simplicity
Hello everyone, and welcome. I feel delighted to sit down here and see your names. For those of you who are chatting, I think there is something very beautiful about names. Maybe the beauty I'm seeing in them is what they represent—the beauty of each of you, or somehow the specialness, or a deep appreciation of who is behind those names. I just feel very happy and contented to sit here and see all the names. I am telling you a little bit about this because I am surprised that is what comes up first sitting here. So, thank you for being here.
Today for the meditation, I'd like the theme to be "Simplicity." The overarching theme of this week is the consequences of letting go, of release, of non-clinging. Non-clinging, which is at the heart of the goal of Buddhist practice, involves quite a profound transformation or change. To only see it as non-clinging—the absence of clinging—misses some of the ways in which it fills in or expands out into a very rich sense of being alive, being here, and being creative in this world. So, learn to recognize some of the consequences of this letting go. Non-clinging supports the richness of the experience, and simplicity is one of them.
To cling is complicated, especially if we're clinging to many things. To be distracted is complicated; being undistracted is simple—just being with what's here. To be reactively thinking, story-making, and having discursive thought in relationship to what's going on is complicated. To have a simplicity of being and just being with things in the simplest way, without clinging, without being for or against, does not curtail or limit our intelligence or understanding. Instead, it adds a through-line through our life, through our experience, where something inside of us maintains a simplicity of being so that we're less distracted, less conflicted, less confused, less scattered, and less jumping around.
Clinging involves story and meaning-making and wider purposes. Sometimes it involves conceit in the complicated world of identity—who we are, how we want to present ourselves to people, and proving ourselves. Clinging is a complicated world. Something inside of us becomes simple when we don't cling. Something inside of us becomes quieter. It doesn't mean that what we're involved in is not complicated—we still live in a complicated world—but we address that complicated world in a simpler way, maybe with less need, with less attachment.
For this meditation, let's have simplicity as a reference point. If you don't feel a simplicity of being as we sit here, even just the idea of simplicity can be like a highlighter that highlights how complicated what we are actually doing is.
Assuming a meditation posture and gently closing your eyes. Begin by a simple acknowledgement that you are where you're sitting, where you're meditating. This is the place. Generally, when we sit down to meditate, we're entering into a world that is somewhat removed, somewhat free of needing to answer the phone, cook food, go shopping, solve issues, or take care of our responsibilities. For these minutes, we're allowing ourselves the gift of a simplicity of being here in this place, in this body.
Take the time to feel the body. The body can have a lot of different sensations in it. Sometimes it's complicated; our relationship to the body is complicated. But to sit quietly with your body, in your body, can allow the tensions of the body to begin to soften. Allow the body's wish to be soft, relaxed, and settled to have a chance to unfold. It's rare that the body wants to be tense; it's rare that the body wants to be agitated. There is almost a deep wish in the body to release and relax. The body likes to be simple. There's a very strong movement in the body towards homeostasis, towards balance, to wholeness.
Within the body, as part of the body, become aware of the breathing. The rhythm of breathing in and breathing out can be a settling force, like a massage from the inside out. As you sit here, allow that rhythm of breathing to have an influence on your body—a connecting, relaxing influence. Give time to feeling your body breathing so that you're moving towards a simplicity of being here without a lot of desires that things be different. A simplicity of being with how things are.
Offer a simplicity of attention to the thinking mind. The thinking mind itself can have a deep wish to rest, to unwind, to soften its tensions. Gently, slowly, on the exhale, begin a process of quieting the mind, letting the mind relax and settle.
Perhaps an ongoing support for an ongoing simplicity of being can be the rhythm of the body breathing in and breathing out. A simplicity where not much needs to happen except staying here, present. Where in the simplicity you can find non-clinging, and where in non-reactivity you can find simplicity.
Are there ways you are more complicated now than you need to be? Find your way back to a simplicity of being without the complexity of a lot of thinking, a lot of wanting or not wanting, without trying to make something happen. Content to be aware. Content with a simple awareness of what is.
So, as we come to the end of this sitting, you might want to take a few moments to consider how being simple—our simplicity of being—might be a great gift to give yourself. Maybe there are times when it can feel like a relief. Maybe there are times it can feel like freedom itself.
Consider how your way of being simple in social circumstances can be a gift to others. One way to understand that is that being complicated is the opposite of a gift. Being complicated can be confusing; sometimes there's no room for other people in the complicated mind. If we're caught up in complications, we can't see very clearly, and we can't be with others very well. Maybe it's through a simplicity of presence and attention that we support people to be themselves, to be respected as they are, to feel safe, and to be able to relax around us.
May it be that what we learn through this practice helps us to support the well-being and happiness of others. May our life contribute to the welfare and happiness of others. One way to do that is not complicated, but to offer a simple presence, a simple attention, a simple accompaniment of others.
May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may we discover how profound it is to share with each other a mutual simplicity of being, a mutual contentment with being simple, here and now.
Thank you.
Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (19) Simplicity of Non-Clinging
Hello everyone, and welcome to this talk on the signs, symptoms, and consequences of non-clinging. Non-clinging is a synonym for liberation, for freedom—the kind of spiritual freedom Buddhism talks about. The symptom or the indication of non-clinging that I'd like to emphasize today is simplicity.
Clinging is complicated. Clinging involves a whole background of conditioning, beliefs, desires, wishes, relationships to other people, memory, and projection into the future. Clinging can involve a complicated world. Non-clinging is simple. It's the absence of clinging, and in that absence, there is an absence of that immense, complicated edifice that keeps clinging in place. So when we learn not to cling, when we learn to let go, when we become free of clinging, we can feel that things become simpler in ourselves.
The world around us may remain complicated, but we can have a through-line that runs through how we engage in the world—an inner sense of simplicity. Of course, we have to deal with many things that are complicated, but one way that helps is to simply do one thing at a time. It's complicated to multitask. It's complicated to do many things at once. Some of you maybe are quite capable and proficient at multitasking, but it comes at a cost. The cost is that we stay in a more complicated world and we keep spinning, juggling lots of balls in the air.
When we're multitasking, there's very little opportunity to appreciate freedom, to appreciate simplicity, to appreciate non-clinging. More likely, there is a certain distractibility in multitasking such that we don't see what's behind all the things that we do. We don't see what the drives are, what the fears are, what the desires are, what the aversions are. We don't see the conceits that are operating because we're so busy doing so much that it obscures the kind of clarity that arises if we're just doing one thing at a time—listening to one thing, being with one person at a time, listening well.
When we do one thing at a time, maybe we get fewer things done, but we also maybe get things done better so we don't have to redo them. Maybe when we're at ease and relaxed, we do things in a better way. I found that sometimes when I feel like I have too much to do and not enough time, paradoxically, if I sit down to meditate for ten minutes, somehow I have plenty of time afterwards. In the complexity of having a lot to do, there's a kind of tension and pressure that builds up in the mind that makes doing whatever I'm going to do more difficult. I do it not as intelligently, not as creatively, or not as fully, and that contributes to the sense that there's not enough time.
A simplicity of being is maybe connected to a contentment. But these words like "simplicity" and "contentment" can be off-putting because our lives are rich and wonderful in complicated ways. Doing many things at once, and doing rich and complicated things, is enlivening and vitalizing. Maybe so, but even there, there's a way of staying simple in the middle of the many things we do.
I was once a short-order cook1 at a restaurant after being for almost three years in a Zen2 monastery. There was a lot of activity going on, fast and quick, and I was tracking many different things. But I would say that in the middle of it all, I was there in a very simple way. I was not caught up in a lot of desires, a lot of memories, a lot of what was happening tomorrow or what happened yesterday. I was fully, completely there for this amazing dance in the kitchen. I would leave the end of my shift feeling more settled, more peaceful, more simple, and more concentrated than when I started my shift. It was a delightful feeling. So there was a kind of simplicity of being, of just doing the complicated act of short-order cooking. Just because we have a lot to do doesn't mean that we can't find that through-line as well.
If we're distracted a lot, if we're caught up in thoughts a lot, that's a complicated world. If we're fretting over things and anxious about things, I propose that's a complicated world. If we're living in our memories too much and reviewing and thinking about things, that's a complicated world. If we're trying to figure things out too much, it can be too complicated. Of course, we have to figure things out, but sometimes we figure things out better if our minds are clear and open.
Sometimes, with things that are difficult to figure out, I don't figure them out. Sometimes I'm reflecting on and thinking about them, but then I do something else, and the answer comes. Sometimes when I don't remember a word or someone's name, if I stop searching for it, then thirty seconds or a minute later it comes up. If I stayed in that complicated mode of searching and wanting, concerned and worried about not remembering, it keeps obscuring the mind's capacity to find its way.
So, when you are able to let go, when you're able to find some modicum of non-clinging to things, look for what feels like simplicity to appreciate it better. Simplicity of being, a simplicity of perception, a simplicity of thinking, a simplicity of care for the situation—maybe even love for the situation. This is the theme for this week. It is not that you have to be simple, but rather, if you're able to stop clinging—let go of the grasping you have or the resistance you have—appreciate the results.
For today, appreciate the feeling or sense of simplicity that comes from that simplicity of being. Something becomes less complicated. It's complicated to want to, expect, and ask people to be simple. But I'd propose that it's simpler to suggest noticing the simplicity that arises when you are no longer clinging, and then appreciate that. Take time with it, be nourished by it, let it condition you. Let it recondition you in a way that maybe begins to heal the conditioning that comes from being overly busy. There's a huge cost to being complicated, doing too much, running around, and juggling too many balls. It can really wear a person down; it can really cause a lot of stress. So as we begin appreciating the simplicity of being that can come from non-clinging, it's actually a reconditioning medicine for the unhealthy conditioning of living in a way-too-complicated inner world, and sometimes an outer world.
Simplicity. As you go through today, you might look for opportunities to not cling. Maybe there are simple moments throughout the day. Maybe you're taking a bus somewhere; just sit on a chair in the bus and don't look at your phone, don't do anything but just be there. In letting go of the drive and the desires to always be doing something, see if you can find the blessing of simplicity. Standing in a line in a store, waiting for a computer to start—if you turn it on, don't fill that time with something else. Maybe waiting for the water to boil, don't try to be efficient and do other things at the same time. Maybe there's a way of just standing and looking out the window, or sitting down for a few minutes and breathing and being mindful, that overcomes some of the clinging you go through. You begin appreciating a simplicity of being, allowing something else to condition you through the day than always being on the go.
So, thank you very much. I wish you the joys and blessings certainly of non-clinging today, but also the joys and blessings of simplicity.
Thank you.