This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Joy in Letting Go; Core Teachings (5 of 5) Liberation. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Joy in Letting Go; Dharmette: Core Teachings (5 of 5) Liberation - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on June 14, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Joy in Letting Go

So good morning again. I was saying that I feel kind of delighted to be here, partly from having done the half-an-hour walk from my house to IMC in this wonderful, clear, cool morning. There's something about the simplicity of walking in the early morning and having many things fall away and just being here and breathing the cool air. The simplicity of just being is a delight.

To prepare for this meditation: if someone keeps their hand tight in a fist for a long time and then somehow or other they have the occasion for it to relax, it can be a tremendous relief. That relief can come with a surge of joy or delight that is almost distracting from our distractions. It pulls us away for a little bit from all the concerns we have and preoccupations and the thoughts, maybe ideas that were causing us to tighten up the fist to begin with. It's almost like for maybe a second or two, it's like being on a slide and sliding down, and everything kind of stops for the purposes of just whooshing down the slide. And so there's the relief and maybe even joy of letting go of everything.

As we do this meditation, let go. Just let go of everything. Every time you let go of your thoughts, look for the relief, look for the moment of joy, the moment of being on that slide. As you exhale, there's a kind of letting go. I sometimes particularly feel like there's a slide as the sensations in the torso, in the chest, in the belly and diaphragm of releasing the breath get released. The inhale too can be a letting go if you let go into the breathing, the body breathing in.

Let go of preoccupations. If there's physical pain as you sit, an ache, maybe you can't let go of the pain, but maybe let go of the resistance to it or the aversion to it. If there's desire for something, maybe that thing you don't let go of, but maybe the desire for it for a moment or two can be let go. Let letting go be what you do in this meditation. Every time you are with a breath, you've let go of thoughts, but as you do so, see if you can enjoy it, find the relief. And if you're straining and trying too much to meditate or to follow these instructions, maybe the relief and the delight can come from letting go of these instructions and then continuing to meditate, letting go again and again and again. But see if you can find the relief or the enjoyment that somehow keeps you contented here and now, in the present moment with your direct experience. So let go.

Enjoy. And if you whatever you might need to let go of, you might have to turn the attention back some deeper way into the mind to find out where the stage director is, seemingly off-stage, commentating, judging, coming to conclusions. And maybe letting go is bringing the stage director on the stage so it's seen clearly, and you let go then. Let go and enjoy. Let go and feel the relief. And don't make anything big about this. If you're able to let go, don't start thinking about it. Let go again and again.

So, assuming a meditation posture, gently closing your eyes, and in a moment taking a deep breath and relaxing on the exhale. Before doing that, what is it that you can release physically, mentally, emotionally? What can you release as you exhale? So taking a deep breath and letting go. Taking a deep breath and letting go into the body, into the present moment.

Here, after taking a few long, slow, deep breaths and relaxing, see if you can ever so slightly enjoy now letting go of breathing deeply. Letting go of that effort and breathing in a normal way. On the exhale, maybe there's a relaxing in the body, relaxing in the mind that is a form of letting go, too. Enjoy it.

The deep breath, and just breathing in, breathing out, is there some releasing of thought or the gripping to thought? Letting go of thoughts and letting go into the breathing in a way that's a relief, a joy. You've probably spent enough time in your life thinking. It can be a relief to let go for these few minutes of your preoccupations in favor of the joy of letting go, here and now.

Perhaps it's useful to let go of whatever's caught your attention, whatever you're caught in, at every exhale. Maybe it's letting go of physical tension in your body, or letting go of the aversion to the tension. Letting go of thoughts, or letting go of being bothered by your thoughts. Maybe letting go takes a form of softening. And as you let go, notice the relief or the joy of letting go, however slight it might be.

And if when you let go, if you feel any relief or delight in letting go, allow yourself to have an ever so slight smile, turning up the corners of your lips just enough so there's a kind of delight in your face. And keep letting go with every exhale, maybe with every inhale. And let whatever joy or relief that is in that letting go, let it be registered in your body, your heart. Let it be like a wind of wellbeing that blows through your very being.

And as we come to the end of this sitting, may it be that the joy of letting go allows us to be more present for others in a way that appreciates them, where we take delight in the loveliness of others. Or where our joy and our wellbeing is the manner by which we, through which we see others. May we bring joy with us into the world. And in so doing, may we be the conditions to support the well-being and happiness of others. May all beings be happy. May all beings be delighted in feeling safe. May all beings be free of their suffering. May all beings let go enough to experience the appreciation, the respect that you might offer them. May all beings be happy.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Core Teachings (5 of 5) Liberation

Welcome to this fifth talk where I try to offer a description or explanation of the core teachings that I base the rest of my teachings on, the kind of the foundational teachings, and maybe what, in some ways, animates or motivates me to teach.

So, to review what I've done this week so far: I place the attention and sensitivity to suffering and the end of suffering at the center of the Dharma that I teach. The possibility of ending suffering, the possibility of meeting suffering in the world and oneself in a deep way, is one of the most profound things that I know a person can do. There are many wonderful things to do in the world, but I believe one of the most fundamental, wonderful things is bringing suffering to an end, either for oneself or working to support others to do that. And then whatever other wonderful things we do, we do in reference to that freedom from suffering. Then it makes everything else more meaningful or more valuable because it conveys that possibility for others as well.

That end of suffering is supported by not holding on to any fixed views, that there's a freedom from views. Certainly, human beings do a tremendous amount of projecting onto others, onto reality, onto themselves of concepts, ideas, judgments, and bias. We do that with our religious and spiritual practices as well. One of the key qualities of the kind of Buddhism that I'm really oriented towards is not holding on to any views as being ultimate religious views. Even the idea that "this is the truth" is a kind of dangerous territory that lends itself to one more view to put on top of things. Certainly, there are understandings and perspectives that are invaluable, but there's a way in which, as our practice goes deeper, we rely less and less on perspectives, less and less on views and interpretations, and even Buddhist teachings. Ultimately, we need to be freed of Buddhism too.

Then there is the naturalistic aspect of all this. By the absence of views, there's a way in which we're being very present, here and now. There is a natural unfolding, there's a natural way in which we operate, and that we can stay close to. We don't have to rely on things that require views, including views of the supernatural or things we can't know directly for our own experience. So this direct connection to direct experience is important, not just in and of itself, but direct experience as a medium through which the natural, healthy processing, unfolding, evolving of our heart, our mind, our spirituality, our freedom can occur. So we want to stay close to that.

Part of that naturalism that we stay close to is a natural capacity for positive social emotions that involve care—care itself, compassion, loving-kindness, empathy. This is part of the awakening that happens in Buddhism: the awakening of the sensitive heart, the awakening of the heart that can be attuned to the welfare of others, to the suffering of others, and to ourselves, but to do so without being distressed, without being troubled, without being caught up in views of self and others and meaning and victim and even the views of responsibility and obligation to others. There's a radical way in which we're setting free this beautiful human sensitivity that can inform us and guide us and motivate us. That is part of the naturalistic movement, not the projected movement of responsibilities, obligations, shoulds, shouldn'ts, good person, bad person.

As the sensitivity to suffering deepens, so it does to ourselves. The remarkable thing about the path of liberation is that it becomes a more and more subtle sensitivity to suffering, which at some point you can't really call it suffering anymore, maybe in the way that the popular world thinks of suffering as big things. It becomes a very subtle, very deep stress or tension that we carry deep in our psyche, deep in our minds, that underlies everything that we're also addressing in the path.

Then we come to today, where one of the fundamental orientations I have in teaching is that there's liberation and a path to liberation, and that the path to liberation is a naturalistic path that unfolds, it opens up, that shows itself as the mindfulness, as the stability, as the concentration, the steadiness of the heart and mind becomes deeper and deeper. We can feel that onward-leading nature to the end of suffering. There's a call, there's a motivation, there's a desire for that end that's not a projection, that's not an attachment, but a completely naturalistic desire that is healthy to adhere to or healthy to go along with.

In this naturalistic way that I like to teach or understand, I use a very physical, ordinary example that could be seen as somewhat reductionistic or materialistic even, but it speaks to the naturalistic nature of what happens in this deep kind of path of liberation. The example I often like to use is to hold on tightly to your fist. Really hold tightly on it. And if you hang on to a tight fist and do a really good job with a tight fist, like almost so your hand's going to go numb or it's going to hurt, without injuring yourself, what you'll start feeling is a natural tendency to relax the grip. So if you want to do this as an exercise, really do a good job, like you're proud of how well you can keep that hand constantly tight.

And then I'm going to tell a story of how in ancient India there was a way of catching monkeys. Now, it turns out that monkeys apparently love sweets. So a monkey hunter would carve out a slot in a coconut, carve out the inside of the coconut enough to put a candy in it. And so you tie the coconut to a tree. The monkey comes along and knows the candy is in there and can only get its hand in through that slot by having the hand flat. It goes in and holds on to the candy, but then the hand is kind of bunched up, and now it tries to pull out the hand and it can't do it. It doesn't want to let go of the candy and it can't get free of the coconut. And the coconut is tied, so the hunter just comes along and picks up the monkey. It's caught.

So as I told that story, were you able to maintain that tight fist? Were you a little bit distracted by me and by the story? If you were, then you probably felt a little release. You can let go now of your fist if you'd like. A little release of letting go. The natural tendency of tension, of holding on tight in the muscles, is that muscles want to relax and let go. So whether it's physical tension or emotional tension or mental tension, the nature of that tension is to want to relax. Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing a bit to call it that it "wants" to let go, but that's the onward-leading nature of it. It has the characteristic that it takes energy to keep it going, and the energy is tiring to keep expending, so the movement is towards letting go of any tension. All suffering comes with tension. All suffering comes with a certain kind of work, believe it or not.

As we can feel the work, we can feel the tension and how there's almost like a desire to let go, to release. That's the path of liberation that opens up through being sensitized to this and seeing and following the movement towards a deeper and deeper letting go. It's what our whole psychophysical system most wants, more than any other desire. What we find is that that desire is a natural desire. It's a desire that comes without tension. I call it, again, in this reductionistic way, "the biological imperative to liberation."

In the process of my own practice and my own path of liberation, it's made a huge impact on me how deep and thorough the possibility of freedom from suffering can be. The Buddhist teaching that there's an end to suffering, this is real. It is possible to end suffering. The completeness, the fullness that's possible has taught me that even though sometimes it's temporary and suffering comes back afterwards, it's a radical transformation to experience that, even temporarily, this very full, complete letting go that this tradition points to as possible. That then becomes the guide for all the rest of this. Yes, it's important to address suffering directly and to bring it to an end. Yes, views, no matter how subtle, get in the way of the deepest letting go that we can do. Yes, this is a kind of a natural process we're involved in that we cannot orchestrate, that we cannot, in the end, make happen. Yes, this natural desire for the end of suffering is a deep form of care, a deep form of compassion and love. And yes, there is a path. Yes, this deep, deep liberation is possible.

This is what underlies, in the background, what I teach. There was a time before we had to remodel IMC that on the wall opposite where I sit teaching, there was, for the teacher's sake, high up on the wall, a synonym for liberation, reminding me, reminding teachers, that all the teachings are in some way or other moving in that direction as well. This is what this is about. Everything else in Buddhism, I'd like to believe, is an extension of this or builds on that, is founded on this.

I operate under the idea in teaching that this is really a worthwhile goal for the world, that we don't just do this liberation for ourselves. We do it to benefit and support everyone. Some of us need to take this path all the way to the end so that everyone sees that it's possible. There's hope, there's possibility. We don't have to keep living in a world of strife and animosity and greed. We don't have to always be caught in ourselves and kind of building up the self or protecting the self in a certain kind of way. There's a radical freedom that is possible that we can experience. It's kind of equivalent to the airlines who say, "Put on your air mask for yourself first and then help others."

So I hope that these teachings have been useful for you to understand, at least me and what's underneath my teachings. I'm very grateful for this opportunity to teach this way and let you know, and very grateful for all my opportunities to be able to teach. I feel so fortunate that I have these opportunities to share something that is so profound for me and something that allows me to give expression to my care and compassion for this world that we live in. So thank you very much.