This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Non-Reactivity; Non-Violence (1 of 5) Non-Harming is the Essences of the Dharma. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Non-Reactive Mindfulness; Dharmette: Non-Violence (1 of 5) Non-Harming is the Essence of the Dharma - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 23, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Non-Reactive Mindfulness

Hello everyone, and happy to have you here as I return from being gone for a week, and to be able to share this time together. To begin right away, I want to say that meditation is often associated with becoming calm and relaxed. Sometimes when people show up to meditate, they might feel agitated. They might feel all kinds of difficult emotions or have spinning minds, and the idea is that meditation is an antidote for that—that we're trying to calm that down or settle something and become more peaceful. That's all fine, and it's actually part of meditation, but there comes a time when what we want to do in meditation is not calm ourselves down. It is not to make things pleasant for ourselves, but rather learn to be present—equanimously present, wisely present, non-reactively present for how things are difficult.

If we always need to change how we are and change how we feel, we're not really finding the full freedom that mindfulness meditation can provide us. If we always need to make ourselves feel better, then we're still caught and probably still attached to something, thereby setting up the conditions for us to get caught again. If we're reacting towards our tension and only calming down, then we're not learning how to become wise, non-reactive, and find a kind of peace—and maybe being peaceful about not being peaceful.

So we've been doing these 7 AMs, many of us for over three and a half years now. So I'd like to suggest that we don't use this meditation to relax intentionally. Maybe unintentionally that might happen. But to assume a meditation posture, and either lower your gaze or close your eyes, and to begin directly without relaxing, without settling in. To simply recognize how you are right now.

You might be sleepy. You might be a little bit dull. You might be agitated. You might have some tensions in your body. Don't automatically relax the tensions. Just be present for how you are.

Think of meditation as making room for how you are. Creating space. Breathing room for tension, for agitation, for an overactive mind. For sorrow and grief. For anger, and whatever is happening.

And as we sit these next 20 or 25 minutes or so, don't try to change anything. Don't try to let anything go. Don't try to relax. Don't try to only change how you are with things. Just be present for whatever way you are with an attention and awareness which is non-reactive, that allows yourself to be just the way you are. To be able to have the inner strength to be present for how you are, even if it's not what you want.

And then breathe with that. Breathe so that you stay in touch with it and keep finding your way to a non-reactive mode of awareness—an attention that doesn't need anything to change, except to be aware of how things are directly, giving room for how things are to be just the way they are, as they exist in the present moment.

For this meditation, past and future are irrelevant for the purpose of being present here for how we are.

Sitting here, being aware without trying to change anything. To improve on things, to push something away. Without giving into your preferences, or being pushed around by what you like and what you don't like. Let how you are be just the way it is, while being clearly aware, "This is how it is." Finding a non-reactive awareness that is able to look at reality directly as it is. Without being agitated about being agitated.

Not drifting off in thought, rather clearly recognizing that's what's happening. Not reacting to what's happening, clearly knowing what's happening. Finding a kind of peace with how you are as you are. A peace which is only about the present moment here, as you are. Independent of what happened in the past, what's going to happen in the future. Just now, peace with how you are.

To know how to be present to discomfort and be comfortable with being with discomfort. Be at ease with being uneasy. Being able to see clearly what is difficult without changing it. This is a kind of superpower that can bring many benefits as we go into our lives.

We can be a gift to others because we know how to be present when things are challenging. We know how to have a non-reactive presence. We know how to be comfortable with discomfort when others may not know that. And so we bring with us a different way of being that doesn't perpetuate the cycles of reactivity that people can live in, but rather demonstrates the possibility of being peaceful when there's conflict. Being non-reactive when things are not to our preferences.

May it be that our capacity to be present for discomfort serves our ability to care for the welfare and happiness of others. May it provide us with patience. May it provide us with the ability to learn to understand others better. May it provide us with the time so that we can be wise in how we respond to the challenges of life.

May non-reactive presence be a gift to ourselves and others so we can connect to the deepest parts of ourselves and to others. May this practice that we do support the welfare and happiness of all beings everywhere. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be healthy. And may all beings everywhere be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Non-Violence (1 of 5) Non-Harming is the Essence of the Dharma

So that meditation we just did, I feel, is phenomenally important to learn. Maybe it's not something that people who are beginners of meditation would focus on, but sooner or later, if we really want to be free, we have to be free even when we're uncomfortable—even when things are not what we prefer them to be. And if we want to be able to care for the world well and wisely, we need to learn how to be comfortable with the discomforts of the world so that we're not reactive. Our reactivity shouldn't override our ability to see clearly, to think clearly, to care clearly.

It's a phenomenal skill to learn, and so maybe this week that can be the focus. I know some of you may have a deep need for relief, for relaxation, for some kind of calm in the middle of your storm, and you're welcome always to practice as you see fit. But I'd like this week to help us explore the full benefit of this practice that comes when we understand—when we know how to practice with what's difficult.

Part of the reason for this is that I want to talk about the central Buddhist teaching on non-violence and non-harming. An ancient teaching in Buddhism is that the primary characteristic of the Dharma¹ is non-harming. Non-harming is a very challenging state. In order to be able to live wisely with a dedication to non-violence, it's important to be able to be wise about the challenges that our life brings us—challenges of living this life in a world where there is so much violence.

It begins by knowing how to be present for tremendous difficulties and not being pulled into our reactivity. Pulled into our fear, our anger, our distress, our alarm—all kinds of things that we get caught in. If we get caught in those things and act from them, then we're probably not going to act with much wisdom. We're probably not going to act in ways that lead to everyone's long-term benefit.

In the teachings of the Buddha, there's a phenomenal emphasis on non-harming. You see the importance of it scattered throughout. It's so fundamental that it's what brought me to the Dharma. I came to the Dharma during the Vietnam War time, and I was of draft age. When I turned 18, they had a lottery for the draft, and it was possible that I would get a low enough number that I would be called into the military and maybe sent to Vietnam to fight.

I was a dedicated pacifist. I was certainly incapable of picking up a rifle and fighting and killing other people. So I assumed that I would figure out some way to be a conscientious objector or find some way to avoid going to fight. But it was still very active among those of us in our first year of college—most of us were of draft age. So we had a lot of conversations about this, and a lot of conversations about war and violence. As those conversations went, I was a person on the most extreme end of the spectrum that was dedicated to non-violence—finding non-violent ways of dealing with conflict.

So then, I had to defend it. I had to stand up for it in some ways. As I looked at myself with this dedication, this way that I was, I could see that there was a problem. There was a gap between these deep beliefs that felt like they came out of who I am, rather than just a belief, about non-violence. It was not a belief that you should be passive and do nothing. It was a belief that when there is conflict, when there is war, a person who is dedicated to non-violence as a non-violent warrior would respond and deal directly in some way with the violence in order to stop it. There are lots of phenomenal examples in the 20th century of people who have done this, and examples where it didn't work, but I was inspired by the examples that did work.

The problem I had was I was afraid of dying. I could feel that whereas my beliefs were that I should be able to be a non-violent warrior, my fear of death, my fear of the harm that I could receive, got in the way. I didn't feel good about this gap, and I felt I had to address it.

My first interest in Buddhism was because somehow I picked up in my teenage years this idea that Buddhist practice addressed this fear. Buddhist practice would somehow address this concern I had, so that if the time came for me to be involved in non-violent civil disobedience, non-violent action, I would be prepared. I would be ready for it. So that was kind of the beginning of my interest in Buddhism. It didn't really get me practicing regularly—it took a few more years before I started practicing regularly. But what it has meant is that I was very attracted to the teachings in Buddhism for the non-violent teachings, the emphasis on that.

I knew that just being dedicated to that was not enough; there had to be wisdom about how to do that. I came across a book by an academic scholar named Gene Sharp. It's a three-volume little book called Nonviolent Action². He was a scholar of non-violence around the world and studied it in its different manifestations, its techniques, and its ways. It showed that it's not enough just to be dedicated to it; it's a sophisticated strategy to address the world this way.

So I studied his book, and I was interested in more of this. But as I got involved in Buddhism, I got pulled into this world of practice, feeling very confident that this practice would make people better able to live in the world in a non-violent way to some degree. But I always wanted to address it more, and I did some workshops on this topic of Buddhism and non-violence—the Buddhist teachings on non-violence. It's always been a strong current that I've wanted to address and talk about, and so I'm going to take this week to talk about it a bit.

I want to say first that peace is not the absence of conflict. Conflict is an inevitable part of human life. However, peace is knowing how to work with conflict, work with differences, work with disagreements in such a way that we try to benefit both sides of the conflict. This might sound naive. It might sound like it's ridiculous. But maybe if we don't educate ourselves, if we don't prepare for it, it's not something we jump into. If we get out of bed and decide today we're going to address the violence in the world non-violently, maybe it takes years of dedication and practice and learning.

I'm originally from Norway, and in Norway, there's mandatory military service for a year. There is an option for being a conscientious objector, in which case a person has to serve two years doing some kind of community service, maybe working in a hospital as a hospital aide or something. So everyone in Norway—back then it was all the men—had to do some kind of service for the country, whether it was military, conscientious objector, or some other way.

Some of the conscientious objectors objected to this because at that time there was a feeling that Russia was a threat. World War II was not so long before, the Cold War was happening, and some of the conscientious objectors wanted to have training equivalent to military training in non-violent strategies. This was so they could develop themselves and be prepared for engaging very actively in non-violent ways if the country was invaded.

When Martin Luther King Jr. led his phenomenal civil rights movement that was dedicated to non-violence, they just didn't wake up in the morning and practice non-violence. They prepared the non-violent protesters; there was preparation and training to be ready for what they did. And I think in the long run, though some of those protesters died and some of them were severely hurt, probably fewer people got hurt that way than if there had been a violent attempt to try to rectify this injustice that existed then. Somehow we justify violence almost like it's okay to die if we're fighting, but it's not okay to die for non-violence.

So peace being learning how to be with conflict so that it supports both people—I'll talk more about this over the course of the week, and I hope you stay for this week. I hope that your desire for pleasure, for delightful meditations, for deep states of calm, to learn inspiring teachings about joy and love, doesn't cause you to be disinterested in learning how to be with conflict and how to be wise about it. Being with our discomforts in life—this is a phenomenally important part of Dharma practice.

I want to read finally—there are many quotes from the Buddha about this kind of thing, but I'll read some of them over the course of the week—I want to read this one as we end today:

"Those people who are strong seek the best for themselves and for others. Understanding another person's anger, they cultivate calm and stillness, and thus they heal both themselves and others. Those who call this weakness do not understand the Dharma."

That's in chapter 11 of the Connected Discourses³.

So I'll talk more about this in the course of the week. In a sense, this is also a response to the horrendous violence that's going on in the world right now, and violence that's a continuation of what's been going on in the world for thousands of years in one place or another.

So thank you for being part of this. This is a very important part of who I am and what I want to teach, and so I appreciate the chance to do it. Thank you.