This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Beyond Thinking; Introduction to Mindfulness (20 of 25) Knowing Without Thinking. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Beyond Thinking; Dharmette: Introduction to Mindfulness (20 of 25) Knowing Without Thinking - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on February 09, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Beyond Thinking

Hello, and welcome. This week, the instructions have been offered on mindfulness of thinking. Hopefully, it hasn't been too complicated; the idea is always to try to keep the instructions simple. That's the intention today as well, but the instructions I give might not be understandable. Don't worry yourself about it. Don't try to force yourself to do it or think that you're supposed to do it.

Mindfulness of thinking is valuable, and what can also be helpful is not to be too involved or too focused on thinking. There are people who identify themselves with their thinking. They are their thinking; their thinking is them. There's no distinction between the two. For some people, being aware and thinking are also indistinguishable. There's a big overlap between mindfulness and thinking, but it doesn't have to be exactly the same.

Today, I'd like to emphasize that which is not thinking. There are many things which are not thinking, but in relationship to thinking, there are two areas that I'd like to point out.

First, beyond the edges of thinking, or outside the domain of thinking, we can sense, feel, and experience. We can hear, but we don't have to think. We don't have to have discursive thinking, or words, or images in response. We can have body sensations, and we don't have to be involved in them and be thinking about them. We don't have to be identifying what they are with thoughts or images. The sensations can just be there, maybe unidentified—just something in the field of awareness that doesn't get any more attention than that. The question is, how do we experience things directly without centering ourselves in the world of thinking, without it being the only lens by which we're aware?

What in our experience is not thinking? Even when we're thinking, what is it that's not thinking here? Some of the things I've taught this week are the body sensations connected to thinking. They're not the thinking in terms of the words, their images, or the ideas; they are sensations. Emotions themselves don't have to be wedded to stories, thoughts, analysis, judgments, and all the ways we think. They can be there without the thoughts, or we can know them without thinking. Thinking might still occur, but they're known free of thinking, just in and of themselves.

This idea is about being able to change lenses, shift gears, or orient ourselves to our experience so we're not experiencing it exclusively through the lens of thinking. Thinking might recede to the background. It might be there as a gentle support, sometimes helpful and sometimes not, but we're not oriented to it. We're not identified with it.

The second thing is knowing. We can know a lot of things without words or images informing us what we know. I call it subvocal knowing: knowing that's below the level of words and usual concepts. In some ways, that operates all the time, because there's so much that we take in just to navigate and walk around in the world that we know without it being actively vocalized or without an act of identification. It is still known in some deeper place in the mind.

For example, many of you go through a door throughout the day. You open and close doors. You might be thinking about other things, you might be busy, and there's no thinking, "Oh, that's a door. That's the handle. I have to touch it." All that happens a little bit on automatic pilot. There's a knowing of the door, knowing where it is, and where the door handle is. I like to call it preverbal knowing. There's a preverbal knowing that's enough to navigate and open the door; it doesn't have to rise up into the verbal place in the mind. Sometimes when we do mindfulness practice, we can rest in that preverbal knowing.

Finally—and this is where it maybe gets complicated—there can be preverbal knowing of that which is not thinking. The experiences we have that do not involve thinking in their origination or arising are known preverbally. This is a place of quiet, of silence, that allows for some deeper knowing—a source from deep within that will always keep us in the present moment. That's where this lives.

So, assuming a meditation posture, and gently closing your eyes.

Orient yourself now to whatever it might be within you where there's a quiet or a silence. Other parts of you might be busy and loud with thoughts. There might be agitation in the body. But see if you can find somewhere deep within where there's a sense of stability and stillness, maybe even a silence.

As you exhale, relax your body and your mind. Relax into that place of silence. As you inhale, perhaps the inhale begins in that place of quiet, calm, or stillness within, relaxing back to it on the exhale.

See if the awareness of the present moment—maybe a preverbal knowing—can arise from this place of quiet within.

Maybe the inhale arises from that place, and the exhale returns to it. The knowing, the awareness—the preverbal and quiet knowing that might be there side-by-side with verbal knowing. Orient yourself to the preverbal, the silent knowing. Knowing without words or images. Let that knowing arise with the inhale, and return with the exhale to that place of quiet.

What is the nature of awareness in between your thoughts, when you don't use thoughts to answer the question?

How are you aware between your thoughts, between the end of one and the beginning of the next?

How are you aware beyond the edges of thoughts?

And how do you know when your knowing is without thoughts, without thinking?

The preverbal knowing arising from a peaceful silence within.

As we come to the end of this sitting, maybe you can appreciate the full range of how we can know—the full spectrum of being aware. Both with thoughts and without thoughts, with our body and our emotions. The ability to be present and receptive for all of it. Present, with all of it suffusing us.

For that to happen, it helps to feel safe. If we don't feel safe, the mind will naturally orient itself in such a way to focus on how to be safe, or what to be concerned about. For a few moments in meditation, maybe we can trust feeling safe enough to not focus on anything in particular, but rather to allow the full capacity for awareness to flow through us, open and receptive to everything.

Even if we don't feel fully safe, just feeling somewhat safe helps us appreciate the value of it—the value of feeling safe. To come to the end of this sitting and become interested in being safe for others. To support others so they can be fully themselves by being a safe person.

What a wonderful world it would be if more people felt safe in their homes, in their communities, in their work, and in this world.

May we contribute to safety. May we support it and make the spreading of safety be contagious. May our way of being safe inspire others.

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

Thank you.

Dharmette: Introduction to Mindfulness (20 of 25) Knowing Without Thinking

Hello for this fifth talk on mindfulness of thinking.

One of the benefits that I've received from my meditation practice—and especially from mindfulness practice—is that I have a friendly relationship with my thinking. My thinking and I get along just fine. I will often know what I'm thinking about, and if that doesn't seem to be the important, valuable, or beneficial thing to be thinking about, it's relatively easy for me to change how I think.

In that way, it's easier to be friends with my thinking because I'm not obsessed or oppressed by them. They're not forcing themselves on me, and I don't live under their weight. I'm friendly with them, and I respect them and give time for my thoughts.

Sometimes, when I exercise or go for walks in the hills, I give my thoughts free rein. I completely let them think whatever they want to think, in a way that I don't in meditation. In meditation, I'm just sitting and being present. That full presence to experience means I'm not traveling along with the thoughts and being the thoughts. But giving freedom to thinking when I exercise or go for hikes is fascinating, because it shows me what's going on for me, what I'm really concerned about, or some deeper unfolding that might be going on by reflecting on something. So I give myself time in my days to give unfettered freedom to my thinking to think as it wishes, and then I practice with whatever that might be, or try to become wise about it if necessary.

Other times, I don't do that. Not because I'm aversive to thinking, but because there's a better game in town. There are more interesting things to do than to be thinking a lot, and that is to be aware. To be present and centered in the present moment, and to just be aware of what's happening as things unfold.

Now, if thinking about things is what awareness is—and some people confuse mindfulness with thoughtfulness, where we're tracking and thinking about what's happening as it's happening, where thinking is a verbal commentary, a verbal recognition, or through images—that certainly can be valuable. But we might be limiting ourselves from the deeper satisfaction of being centered, not in the head. Not in the usual place where discursive thoughts happen, not the usual place where reactivity to the world happens, not the usual place where fear arises from. Instead, we are centered from some deeper source of knowing, which has a quiet and peacefulness to it.

Sometimes it can feel like it's a knowing without thoughts. Or maybe it's a knowing accompanied by very simple thoughts of recognition or questioning. "What is this? I feel an ache someplace in my body." There's a very simple thought: "What is this? Let's bring attention to it. What would it be like to be aware of it really close and intimate? What would it be like to not be so close to it, but observe it from a distance?" That kind of questioning and contemplating comes from a place deep within, a place that feels a little bit more at home than where reactivity comes from.

Part of the advantage of this is that we learn not to identify with our thoughts. We learn not to be our thinking. For many people, who they think they are is inseparable from their thoughts. If they weren't thinking, they would feel they didn't exist. But actually, we can exist brilliantly without being centered in our thoughts and thinking.

So, part of mindfulness of thinking is not just to be mindful of thinking itself, but to be mindful of the absence of thinking. That could be when the discursive, storytelling mind gets really quiet—the mind that goes on and on, that loops and spins around. When it gets really quiet, you can feel the quiet and the silence in that part of the mind. While there still might be some rudimentary thoughts of recognition or questioning ("What is this? How should I be with this?"), those thoughts are very gentle. There is a quieting of the mind.

What does that quieting of the mind feel like? What is it that's not thinking? What is the awareness that arises that is not centered on thinking? This is where mindfulness of the body and sensations is so helpful, because sensations in and of themselves are not a thought. They belong to a deeper process of feeling, sensing, and knowing that's not centered in thinking. Part of mindfulness of thinking is being aware of that which is not thinking, coming to the end of a thought, and observing what is there before the next thought arises.

I'll ask a question of you, and how would you answer this question if you didn't use words or thoughts to explain it, describe it, or answer it?

Who are you? Who are you if you don't use thoughts to answer the question?

There might be many responses to this, but sometimes we realize there is a different way of being alive if we don't use the usual concepts and ideas (e.g., "I'm this kind of person"). If that drops away, how do we experience ourselves? How do we experience life in a fuller, somatic, experiential way that is not always through the filter of thoughts?

I liken this to being finished with the menu. We are no longer studying the menu, but actually eating the food. If we're always living in the menu, the instruction manual, or the screenplay, then we're not really living our lives. Spending too much time living in our thoughts is more like reading the menu.

We learn how to be mindful of thinking in such a way that we start becoming free from being stuck in thoughts. We become free from identifying ourselves strongly with what thinking says to us. We learn to be very respectful of thoughts. We can become friends with our thinking and don't have to be opposed to it, but we're not caught up in its web.

The River of Thoughts

I'll end with a metaphor that I like to use when I teach mindfulness of thinking.

Imagine that you've gone for a nice walk on a beautiful day. You're walking in a park; it's a safe and comfortable place. You stop by the river and lean against a tree with beautiful shade. It's very peaceful and pastoral. You're very content, having a nice little snack or lunch, and you're sitting there just enjoying the water flowing down.

Some people can be almost pulled into the endless streaming of water. It is very relaxing just watching the water flow and the gentle little waves in the river coming and going. It's nice to be alive, nice to be present. The hike's been good, and you feel content.

Then, lo and behold, coming down the river is a showboat with music, dancing, games, a casino, great food, and attractive people. The next thing you know, you're on that boat. You've been on that boat for a few days, and you wonder, "Wait, how did I get here? I was having such a nice, contented time on the riverbank. How did this happen?"

You get off the boat and finally make your way back up to where the tree is. Once again, you're very content and happy watching the river. Nothing's needed. No one to be, no one to become, no one to get, nothing to understand. Just there.

Then down comes another boat. This time it's a war boat, fighting the battle, fighting the good war. You see it, and the next thing you know, you're on the boat for hours fighting the war. You don't even know what war you're fighting, but you're there manning the guns and directing the show. Then you come to and say, "Wait a minute, what am I doing? How did I get there? What's going on?" You get off the war boat, come back to your tree, and sit down.

The next thing you know, there's a decrepit old raft that's barely alive, barely floating. Just limping along down the river, all half-drowned. It seems so poor and pathetic, and you feel sorry for it. As soon as you feel sorry for it, you find yourself, some hours later, managing to sit on top of that raft, navigating down the river. You wonder, "How did I get on this raft?"

You make your way back to the tree. The next boat that comes down the river, you lean against the tree, take a deep breath, relax, and you just watch it go down and pass. Other boats come, and you watch them go past. You don't have to get on.

This is the analogy for thinking. All kinds of thoughts can come along, like all kinds of boats. Do you get on the boat and not even know you're on it? Fighting the good war, having the great fantasy, maybe feeling very sorry for yourself? All those things might be needed sometimes in life, but chances are they're not needed as much as all the boats we get on.

Mindfulness is teaching us to stay present on the shore—the solid, safe shore—and just watch the stream and the flow of life in a freeing way, without getting on.

Conclusion

Thank you. I hope this week on thinking has been useful.

Next week, I'm going to the Insight Retreat Center (IRC)¹ for a week to teach a retreat. Dawn Neal² will come and teach here on YouTube for the next few weeks. She's aware of what I've been teaching these weeks on the instructions in mindfulness, so she'll follow up in some way. This mindfulness world is a wide world, so she'll offer further instructions that can build on what I did this time.

I'll come back a week from Monday and I'll continue on thinking. I was going to have this be a five-week series, but maybe there are more instructions to give and more ways of staying close to the basics that would be useful for all of us.

Thank you very much. I'm sure you'll enjoy Dawn, and I look forward to coming back in a week.