This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Developing Capacity to Be Mindful of Life; Silent Meditation and Dharma Talk with Gil Fronsdal. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Developing Capacity to Be Mindful of Life - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 12, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Introduction

To follow up a little bit on that announcement about the Threshold Choir, it's a beautiful group of people who go and sing songs to people who are dying. It's a kind of service they provide to different places. The songs are quite moving, soaring, and peaceful. It's appropriate for that time of transition in life, and it's also quite nice when we don't think we're in that transition.

Developing Capacity to Be Mindful of Life

I think people often come to meditation to be changed in some way. There's something going on in their life, in themselves—often in Buddhism called suffering¹—something which is difficult, and they somehow see that meditation can change them. They hope it will change something so that there's not so much discomfort, difficulty, or stress that they live with.

Some people come with the idea that there's a cause for suffering, and so you have to get the insight to be able to see deeply in, find that cause, pluck it out, and then live happily ever after. Some people have the idea that there's a way of touching into a wonderful state—a wonderful state of calm, peace, not-self, or non-duality—and that's some place to go. Sometimes people drop into some wonderful state and they think, "I have it made." And maybe they do for that moment. But then life comes in. They leave the retreat center or the meditation center and find that they have two flat tires on their car when they go out, and whatever that great state was, they've completely forgotten about it. "I mean, I have places to go, important things to do, and I was dwelling in all this peace and calm! I have an important calm to experience, I better get this fixed right away!" So these states come and go.

There's another approach to what meditation can do. Rather than changing us or fixing some aspect inside, what it does is expand our capacity to be uncomfortable. Now, we don't advertise this: "Come to IMC and learn how to be more uncomfortable than you are." But in fact, this is actually an important part of it if you want the meditation to be realistic, and if you want it to be a practice that supports you in all the different facets of your life. Life will change. Life will have challenges, and you never know what's going to come.

There was a very significant teacher in the 20th century for many people here in the West named Ram Dass². He went around teaching spiritual practices, and practicing himself for decades. Then, nearby here, he had a stroke. He said that when he had a stroke, he was discouraged because his practice no longer worked. What was going to support him then? We have to find something we can rely on, and one of the things we can rely on is increasing our capacity. In modern psychology, sometimes they call this increasing the "window of tolerance." Part of what mindfulness is, is increasing that window of tolerance so that we're less troubled, disturbed, or stressed by what happens. We're developing our capacity to hold increased degrees of challenge so that if we get sick, if we have an accident, or if some tragedy happens in our life, we aren't pushed around by it, entangled with it, or limited by it. This doesn't take away the idea that it's unfortunate or that it's a tragedy or loss. But we want to be able to have a wide capacity, an open heart, and an open mind that has space for it, that can hold it, so we can have a chance for wisdom. We have a chance to see clearly and relate to it in a different way. Part of what we're doing in meditation practice is learning to be comfortable with discomfort.

Now, don't go make yourself uncomfortable so you can learn this lesson. When I was a Zen monk, I noticed that if I had pain while I meditated, I could get more concentrated. So I went to the abbot and said, "I noticed this. Should I sit in full lotus so that I could have more pain?" He said, "No, don't look for pain. Don't make pain. But when pain visits you, when it comes, then sit with it some. Practice with it. But don't rely on pain for your concentration or for anything."

So don't go looking to be uncomfortable when you meditate. It's actually wise to make yourself as comfortable as you can within reason—comfortable and alert. But sooner or later, you'll be uncomfortable, and for many of us, it's sooner rather than later. The body gets uncomfortable. Especially if you're a new meditator, you're uncomfortable with how much rumination your mind is making, how much you're caught up in spinning stories, ideas, and plans, and how much you're still carrying resentments and challenges. When those things are there, the idea in mindfulness meditation is not to see them as problems, not to see them as wrong or think you're not meditating properly, but to have the idea: "Okay, this too. I have to learn to open up to this too. How can I expand my window of tolerance so that I can allow this to be here without being caught in it or reactive to it?" What does it mean to give breathing room to our mind, to our hearts, to our feelings? What does it mean to make space for it and then stay present for it without reacting?

The image that I love for mindfulness practice is that what we're doing is cupping our hands together, making a kind of cup to come underneath and hold whatever is happening for us. Whatever challenge we're having, we're just holding it. If I'm troubled by the world and I'm trying to resist it all, the resisting starts to be tiring. But I feel I have to resist the world, right? I can't stop because the world's going to do something terrible to me, and I'm afraid to let go. Then I think I'm supposed to meditate, and so I go and try to deal with these hands and fingers, try to relax and all that, but nothing really works. What does it mean to come underneath and hold it? It means discovering what's deeper, and coming to hold that so it can rest. If the elbow can rest, then the hand can rest. As long as the elbow is uncomfortable being held up, the hand is trying to find an answer to something. One way we find our capacity to hold things is to really be present and find what it is that needs to be held in the lap of awareness. Hold it. Just let it be there.

I was told something disturbing this week. I heard it and thought to myself, "Wow, this is quite something. I think, Gil, this is the time to just make space for it." I've been in situations like this before where I reacted, where I took it personally, where I felt like I had to do something immediately—send off emails or whatever. But no, I didn't think so. I thought this was the time just to let it be. Not to ignore it, but to make space for it, let it be, and see what happens. Let's just hold it, and address it when the right time comes, rather than rushing to put out the fire. There was no fire; it was just a difficult statement someone made. That made it so much easier to go through. I had the capacity, the willingness to just be uncomfortable with it, make space for it, breathe with it, and not react immediately and fully.

I want to provide an image that comes from the Chinese Buddhist tradition, the Chan³ tradition, that has wonderful implications and serves as an example of what I'm talking about. Apparently, there was a wizard in town who had the ability to read people's minds. He impressed people with his ability. A Zen student said, "I don't think you can read my Zen master's mind." The wizard replied, "I can read anybody's mind."

The Zen master was out for a walk in town one day. There was an idyllic river running through the middle of the town in the springtime—blue sky, a promenade along the river, and sailboats gently moving back and forth. The Zen master was walking down the promenade, looking at the river and the boats, just out for a walk. He ran into the wizard. The wizard stopped in front of him and peered into his eyes in order to read his mind. After a short while, the wizard got very disturbed, spun around, ran away, and left that town, never to come back. Someone stopped him before he actually left and asked, "Where are you going? What happened?" The wizard said, "I looked into the Zen master's mind, and all I saw was the river and some sailboats sailing in it. Is that what his Zen master mind is like?"

How I understand this story is that he was reading the Zen master's mind in a sense, but there was nothing about the Zen master to be seen. The Zen master was just present for the environment around him, seeing the river and the boats, and that's what was in his mind because that's what was happening in the moment. There wasn't any wanting to be on the boat, or thinking, "I should have been a boat captain rather than a Zen master, I must have chosen the wrong job," or, "I have to give a Dharma talk and I should be worrying about what I'm going to say." He was just walking and taking in the moment.

A similar idea goes back to ancient Buddhist texts. They don't have a wizard, but they have Mara⁴. Mara is the personification of everything that will tempt you to be caught in the world of the senses. Just imagine the ideal world for Mara would be a casino with naked dancers and every drug and alcohol possible, and it would just be wonderful. [Laughter] That's Mara's world. The last thing Mara wants is someone to get enlightened, because then they're not going to get caught in that realm.

When Mara looks into the mind of someone who's awakened, he doesn't see anything. What defines someone for Mara is their attachments, their clinging. Whatever you're caught in, that's what you become in Mara's eyes, and then Mara can get you. But if you're not defined by your attachments, because you have no attachments, then there's nothing that defines you. There's nothing to hold onto, nothing to grab ahold of that Mara can use to convince you to get caught.

Both of these are examples of minds that have great capacity because they're not getting attached to anything. Holding on is what limits the mind, contracts it, and makes it small. Some of us can feel that if we have a busy day running around doing lots of things and multitasking, the mind gets very small, tight, stressed, and claustrophobic. Sometimes after doing a lot—even cleaning my house—I finish and I can see my mind is still reaching out for something to do. I don't know what it is, I'm not supposed to do anything, but the mind is still looking for something. It's caught. Be careful, because Mara can read you then. You are that "wanting," and Mara will come with all the temptations.

The alternative is this ability to let the mind be an open, wide field. An open space like this river with the boats and a great sky. Make space for everything. Make space for something rather than trying to fix it or change it, and make space for it rather than defining yourself by it. We are tempted to define ourselves by our attachments, our desires, what we want, what we don't want, and our opinions. Rather than doing that, the alternative is making room. Make room in awareness, make room in the mind, make room in the heart. "We can hold this."

One of the reasons why this is so useful is that any space we can make to hold ourselves and what goes on within us translates into a capacity to hold the suffering of the world—the difficulties of our friends, our family, our communities, and the world itself. I think this is a great gift we give: to not be drowned in the suffering around us, not be distressed, afraid, or angered by it, but to have the capacity to open wide and hold it all. In a sense, the suffering of the world is the sailboats on the river. Not to diminish the suffering, ignore it, or make it Pollyannaish, but rather to be able to see it clearly so that we can respond appropriately and in a good way.

We see things that are very troublesome in this world. What do you do if you witness an act of racism? Do you react to it and close down? Do you get angry? Do you get afraid? Do you say it's none of my business? I saw one right down the street here by the high school. Someone yelled a terrible racial slur out of a car to someone walking down the sidewalk. What do we do when these things happen? Can we open our capacity not only to hold it and be aware of it without reacting, but also—even better—allow the welling up of an appropriate response? There is space for that too. When we have the capacity to be uncomfortable, that also translates to our capacity to act when it's uncomfortable to act.

One of the things I feel I've learned through this Buddhist practice is to be counterphobic. I've learned that when I'm afraid of something, I turn towards it: "Okay, what's this?" I was on a walk with someone recently and I told her that this is something I've learned to do: step towards things which are uncomfortable and a little bit frightening. I said, "Scare me." [Laughter] She used to be an actress, so she took it on. She suddenly roared at me. I was slightly surprised by how quickly and strongly she did it. But because I knew what was coming, I just turned towards her and stepped closer, within a foot of her. Boy, was she surprised! She was the one who got afraid. To be willing to be uncomfortable allows us to do things in the world to help in situations that are difficult. It's not a drag to develop greater tolerance for discomfort; it allows us to take care of the world much better.

I can't tell you how much I learned about being uncomfortable by being a parent of young children. That's a great training: "Okay, this too." [Laughter] The representative high point of learning to be uncomfortable with discomfort—maybe you want to cover your ears—was when my son was a toddler. I quickly put my hands in front of him, cupped my hands, to catch his vomit. It was just an act of love. Of course, if I had heard this idea before I had kids, I would have thought, "Yuck!" I'm sure some of you did just hearing it. Sorry about that. But, "Oh, this too." This window of tolerance, to hold things in a big space and to be with what's here, is such a powerful skill.

One of the ways we learn this in mindfulness practice is not to try and do it automatically. The ideal is to have the ability to make space and have a great capacity for whatever comes up. But one of the principles we have in this practice is: don't go directly for the ideal. Rather, study what gets in the way of the ideal. Study how you are uncomfortable with discomfort. Study your reactivity, the beliefs you have, what you do with your body. Rather than stepping towards something, do you shut down and pull away even with your posture? Study how you are when things are difficult. Get to know it well. It's by understanding yourself and your reactions that wisdom and capacity grow.

If you go directly to the ideal—"I'm supposed to just be counterphobic and open up to everything"—you might be doing yourself a disservice. You might not have the capacity, and the tendencies to be reactive are still lodged deep inside, ready to come out. You can sometimes cause more harm to yourself and others if you naively make yourself open and vulnerable when you're not ready. We're very interested in how we react. How do we get caught? How do we push away? How do we succumb to fear, beliefs, or judgments? How do we limit ourselves?

As we study that, that is what we hold in the palm of mindfulness. "Okay, this is how it is for me. Let me just be with my reactivity rather than thinking I'm not supposed to be reactive. Let me be with my fear rather than believing I'm supposed to be counterphobic." Hold it until you learn something, until something shifts in you, relaxes, or you start understanding what's deeper down. Or you simply develop a capacity: "Wow, I am really afraid right now. But this is a new world I'm living in. Usually when I'm afraid, I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But look, I'm just sitting here calmly meditating, and I have all this fear coursing through my body. I had no idea it was possible to sit calmly and have so much fear at the same time. They can coexist. Maybe next time I'm afraid, I won't get caught by the fear, but rather make space for it."

I'll end with a story of a person who was on many retreats with me and had a very difficult time. Lots of suffering, everything was challenging. I had a thought that maybe a Dharma teacher should never have when someone is sincerely practicing and trying: I thought maybe I should tell this person to stop practicing. But I didn't. Six months later, the person came to me and said, "Remember that retreat where I had such a hard time?" I said, "I sure did," and I didn't tell him what I was thinking. Then he said, "Well, that was such an important retreat for me, because after that I had a lot of challenges in my life, and I was prepared. I knew how to be with challenges." I didn't see that coming. I just thought the person was hitting his head against the wall over and over again. But in fact, he was learning how to be with such difficulty in a way that he could be with it when it really arose in his life. He had the capacity to make space for it and hold it.

Part of what we're doing in this practice is expanding our capacity to hold discomfort. I hope we never think there's an end to that process. Because if we do, it's too easy to believe, "I have to react, I have to be angry, I have to attack or blame." Let's open, and then let's see what wisdom arises in that capacity, in that openness. The last thing I want is for this great capacity to be open to mean that we don't respond to the world. That is not what we're looking for. The idea is to respond from that open place, so that it's more effective. Maybe giving the world the gift of space allows people to be who they are, so they can see, relax, and soften. If we react in response to other people's reactivity, it just becomes worse and worse; it doesn't help anyone. One of the great gifts we can give the world and others is to be a safe person for them. This is what the Buddha said: "Make yourself safe for others." Isn't that great?

So those are my thoughts today. We have 15 minutes before the end, maybe we'll take about five minutes for questions if anybody would like to ask anything, or share any testimonials you have about developing greater capacity.

Questions and Answers

Questioner 1: Gil, I'm curious about how you handled that situation nearby when someone yelled a slur.

Gil Fronsdal: You know, I didn't do anything, which sounds pretty bad. But I was inside the high school and there was a big fence. I heard this terrible thing being said, but I didn't see who they were talking to. I was like, "Wow, what was that?" The car drove off, and so I kept walking along the high school until I could see who it was that the yelling was directed at. I felt it was important to know what this was about. In retrospect, maybe I could have gone and found the person and done something supportive, I don't know. But because of the distance and the big fence, I didn't do anything.

But it really had a big impact on me. Right here in our neighborhood! Just like I was a little bit stunned last week to read about the police officer in San Jose who was laid off because of his racist texts. This feels like it's right in our neighborhood, and so this is something we have to care about.

Questioner 2: Gil, I have a somewhat weird question, but nonetheless it's a genuine question. My dad was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer a week and a half ago. It's been difficult. As you know, I've taken chaplaincy core training, and I've been to two Maranasati⁵ retreats even before that. So I've had an opportunity to relate to this part of life that normally people don't give themselves an opportunity to.

My particular challenge right now is when I'm talking to my husband about what's happening to my dad. In that discourse, I'll include things like, "His 5-year survival rate is 33%." But it's being taken by my husband as overly negative or pessimistic. But I'm not being pessimistic; there is just data that points to that reality. So right now, I'm stuck in a polarity with my husband. He's saying, "Let's be optimistic, you're too pessimistic." But I understand with a great amount of respect that we Buddhists are a weird bunch in how we relate to things like this.

So my question is: how do we handle family relationships when our Buddhist discourse is being misunderstood?

Gil Fronsdal: Well, I don't know what to say. It's fascinating, my hearing is getting poor, right? I don't have my hearing aids in, so I heard almost everything you said, but I misunderstood one word. You said, "there is some degree of misunderstanding," and I thought you said "a higher degree of me." [Laughter] I thought maybe that's a clue.

Since you did the chaplaincy training, maybe your job is to be everyone's chaplain.

Questioner 2: Oh, I know! I was totally like, "Okay, my husband cannot take care of me, maybe I can take care of my husband." I totally get that. But it's my dad, not my husband!

Gil Fronsdal: So you want someone to take care of you?

Questioner 2: No, no, I don't want a fictional problem to be there. The fictional problem in my husband's mind is that he's optimistic and I'm pessimistic. I'm not pessimistic, I'm just acknowledging different realities around my dad's cancer. I don't feel the need to recoil at a grim prognosis, but that does not mean I'm being pessimistic. So the question is—

Gil Fronsdal: Why do you care so much what your husband believes?

Questioner 2: Well, first of all, because I love my husband very dearly, he's a phenomenal being. But aside from that, when my dad starts treatment, it's a time of great stress for the entire family. Because of this important misunderstanding, it creates conflict and difficulty talking about my dad's cancer.

Gil Fronsdal: If your husband is accurate in his assessment of you, then you have one issue. If he's not accurate, which you're saying, then one possibility is to agree to disagree. Another possibility is to say, "I'm neither pessimistic nor optimistic. I'm just trying to take into account all the possibilities so we can be ready for whatever happens. And if you think that's pessimistic, then let's just agree to disagree."

Questioner 2: I think that's what we end up doing. But I respect your opinion so highly, I was wondering if there is a particular angle we're missing.

Gil Fronsdal: If you have that much respect for me, then I'll err on the side of my preference. Taking care of yourself, how you are, and having the capacity to relax and accept yourself as you are is so important. And by doing that, maybe your husband needs some care as well. Sometimes when people want to be too optimistic around something like this, it means that they're afraid. You know him better than most people, so that might not be the case, but—

Questioner 2: No, it is the case. Very much so.

Gil Fronsdal: Then, as the family chaplain... in a family, you have to be a stealth chaplain. You don't want to show up and say, "Okay, sit down, I'm going to be your chaplain." You just want to look at his fear. What kind of reassurances does he need? What kind of presence does he need? If he gets that, then maybe it's easier for him to accept and understand your position.

Questioner 2: Thanks so much.

Gil Fronsdal: What I'd like to do, since there's a tea time today, I would love it if you would just turn to someone near you, look around so no one's left alone, and just say hello. If this idea of increasing your capacity is evocative of something for you, what did it evoke? It doesn't have to be more than a couple of minutes, but since we have tea and everyone's invited, it actually breaks the ice a little bit. You get to meet someone, and it's kind of nice. So please.