This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Harmonizing with Not-Self; Doors of Liberation (4 of 5) Emptiness. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Guided Meditation: Harmonizing with Not-Self; Dharmette: Doors of Liberation (4 of 5) Emptiness - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 13, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Harmonizing with Not-Self

Hello, and welcome to this meditation session. Meditation is also meant to be a deep welcoming to yourself. Hello. You are being welcomed—all of you—into your awareness, into your attention, into your body, into this time and place here. All of you is allowed to be here; you are welcomed.

The welcome is so big in meditation. Sitting down to meditate, closing the eyes, maybe—just maybe—it's okay to forget yourself. Forget yourself in terms of your usual preoccupations about yourself, judgments about yourself, and usual orientations about your needs and responsibilities. In other words, it could be seen as a kind of vacation from self. The activity of the mind that's preoccupied with self is put to rest for a while.

The topic for today is emptiness, which is related to the topic of not-self¹. The teaching of not-self evokes a lot of "self" in people—a lot of protesting, thinking, "There can't be no self; this is crazy that the Buddhists say so." But what I'd like to propose is that asking the question "Is there or is there not a self?" is not actually a Buddhist question. The Buddha specifically discourages people from that very question.

It's kind of like asking, if you're employed, "Is there work or is there not work?" If you say "there is work," it might imply there's always work—24/7 there's work to be done because that's the only option there is. The other option is "there is not." If one asked, "Is there work?" one would say, "Yes, there is when I'm at work during my work hours. And when I'm not at my work... there's no work." Is there fear or is there not fear? Yes, there's fear, but that doesn't imply there's fear all the time. It's not "is or is not." It's that sometimes there's fear; when the conditions come together in a certain way, there's fear. Other times there's not.

Asking "Is there or is there not a self?" is not an interesting question. Maybe there's a kind of self sometimes, and other times it's not there. Meditation is a time for a profound vacation, a profound resting of that part of the mental processing that's organized around "selfing"—ideas of self, self and others. It's possible to put that to rest temporarily without betraying the self, without claiming there is no self, or feeling like we've abandoned ourselves. Rather, it's a profound way of taking a vacation, of resting, of experiencing something radically different that you can carry back with you into your life, into understanding something about the nature of the construction of self.

To assume a meditation posture... part of the opportunity in this posture, in which you're going to welcome yourself fully, is to have a posture of confidence. In Zen practice, where there was a lot of emphasis on posture, it was literally a posture of confidence. Even if you didn't feel confident, the posture brought some along anyway. A posture of confidence is more effective, more capable; there is something there into which to welcome all of who you are. A confidence that can hold all the challenges, difficulties, and emotions that move through you. Rather than having a posture that's giving in to how you're feeling, have a posture that's bigger than how you're feeling so it can hold how you are.

Maybe with the chest a little bit more open and confident. Maybe there's a way of drawing back your head a little bit and lifting the back of the head where the head meets the vertebrae of the neck. So the back of the head gets lifted and maybe the chin pulls down a little bit more towards the chest. A neck of confidence. Do something with your hands where the hands themselves are placed in a confident position. For some people, that's having the hands face down on the thighs.

Take a few long breaths at the beginning as an expression of confidence. "Here I am. I will breathe into this time and place in the fullness of being." Full breathing, relaxing on the exhale.

Let your breathing return to normal. Feel anywhere in the body where there's holding and tension. Maybe feeling it on the inhale, relaxing on the exhale. And if tension doesn't relax, soften just beyond the edges of the tension. Feeling the thinking mind as you breathe in, and as you breathe out, soften the thinking mind. Relaxing the thinking mind and settling into the confident body.

Maybe as if the awareness is like water flowing downward, let your awareness flow down into your torso to where it's most comfortable to feel the movements of breathing. Breathing in and breathing out. Experiencing the sensations of breathing in your torso, the belly, the chest, the diaphragm.

Notice what sensations of breathing occur by themselves without you willing them or making them happen. The particular sensations are there, and in a certain way, "who you are" as a self—whatever that is—is not actively involved. Almost as if those sensations are there without the self; just sensations.

As you're aware of breathing, as you know it or feel it or watch the breathing, is there any feeling or sense of place inside that is the "doer" of mindfulness? Is there any subtle location from which you're doing awareness? A place of a little bit of a gathering together of energy, tension, or pressure? A little location where there's some emotion that comes along with the doer, the watcher, the feeler of it all?

If there is, on the exhale, soften. Relax the sensations connected to self, to being the doer, the experiencer. Relax. On the inhale, allow those sensations of self to open, to evaporate, to spread out wide. Relaxing and releasing.

Sensing the sensations of breathing, but allowing that sensing to be in the very spot where the sensations occur. So sensing can occur free of self. No reference to me, myself, and mine. Just sensing.

As you're aware, what comes into awareness before the self gets recruited? What nature of knowing, sensing, or feeling occurs independent of self and self-concept ideas, without activating that location of the doer or the experiencer? Relaxing into the awareness that is naturally doing itself. Allowing awareness to do its own awareness, to do mindfulness. All you need to do is allow. Get out of the way.

Awareness is empty of self. Sensing is empty of self. Our self is empty of self. The absence of self and "selfing" is a vacation. A relief. An awareness where whatever is left of self—whatever sensations and presence, contraction there is of self-selfing—where it can evaporate. Dissolve into this vast, confident experience of emptiness of self.

For a couple of minutes, harmonize yourself with emptiness. Align yourself. Float in the current of all that is empty of self. Vast emptiness.

As we come to the end of the sitting, there's a way in which kindness, warmth, and friendliness can flow better in the absence of self-preoccupation. For these next minutes, trust the kindness, the goodwill that can flow freely and openly when there's not the fear or self or needs interfering with the free flow of love. Have an open heart. Open to this wide, wondrous, wonderful, suffering human world. Keep your heart open. Keep that selfless care and kindness. Kindness which is not about you, but about goodwill itself.

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

Thank you.

Dharmette: Doors of Liberation (4 of 5) Emptiness

So, hello and welcome to this fourth talk on the Doors of Liberation. Today the topic is the third door, which is the door of Emptiness². For people who've been around Buddhism and Buddhist teachings for some time, it is recognized that sometimes emptiness is held up as a really phenomenal religious state, a phenomenal religious reality or truth that has almost like a sacred dimension or a very meaningful place in our life. This is especially true in schools of Buddhism like Zen and Mahayana Buddhism, but also in Theravada Buddhism and the Insight practice that we do here at IMC.

Last week, the whole topic for the week was emptiness, so it's been covered to some degree. But as a door of liberation, this is when emptiness functions as a portal to liberation. Emptiness is like a place where we can release fully, relax fully, and let go fully. It is so full that we don't even want to say that "we" or "I" am relaxing fully or releasing fully, because the very subtle way in which "I am the one who is a doer doing something" actually takes us out of alignment with this wondrous and wonderful experience of being alive and present without self-preoccupation of any kind.

When I was seventeen, I was traveling through parts of Eastern Europe—at that time, communist Europe—in a Volkswagen van with four other friends. We were a kind of little commune on wheels. I suppose it was 1971. I remember sitting in the back and looking out the window at very rural mountain areas, sparsely populated. I was meditatively absorbed in the peacefulness of it. Just looking out the window, driving along—nothing. No worries, no cares, no preoccupations. I was absorbed into the landscape of it all.

At some point, something happened in that absorbed landscape. I wasn't a doer of it, but from one moment to the next, I kind of woke up. It was just a sudden clarity, a fullness. It wasn't cloudy beforehand, but it was as if the clouds parted and there was a whole different level of peace and clarity.

Looking back at it now, I see I was so absorbed in the simplicity of just being there, in the activity of looking at the scenery, that I had completely forgotten about myself. "Me, myself, and mine" was not part of the picture. I was aligned with, in harmony with, and attuned to the world around me without "self" operating whatsoever. In that state, something let go, and in that letting go, I was there. I was fully there.

I came back in a certain way within seconds of that because it was so startlingly amazing to have this sudden experience of peace and clarity. This idea of the possibility of being fully engaged, fully present, and aligned with this place where "selfing" is not operating—where selfing has taken a vacation, where all self-preoccupation, all self-orientation, even the subtlest feelings of "I'm the one who's being aware" or "I'm the one who's present"—is dissolved. Any kind of coagulation or coalescing of energy around something we might call a self is dissolved, and we're aligned in harmony with this experience.

Because this experience is empty of self, and there is a profound sense of not taking anything as having substance as being "mine" or "me" or "for me" or "against me," then something happens where the doors of emptiness open. Because we're aligned with it, we can move into it, move through it, step or fall into it, or wake up into it. The door opens. Maybe the door is really, really large, and it's not that anything happens to us. It's just the doors open wide, and the light comes in, the clarity comes, and something very different happens.

Key things I wanted to emphasize: this whole experience is not concerned with the philosophy of self, the metaphysics of self, or "is there or is there not a self." That can be for other people to be concerned with. When you're doing meditation, you have much more interesting things to do than to be preoccupied about "is there or is there not a self."

What is better to do is to really be present for our direct experience—to know it and feel it fully. If there is a feeling of self, a sensation of self, a concentration of some kind of energy around something we might feel as a self, that's worthy of attention. That's worthy of being held gently and mindfully. Because what we learn is that all coalescings, concentrations, gathering together of energy, and orientations around self is a mental activity. It's not an existential reality; it is the way we experience it, know it, and construct it in the moment.

It's a marvelous thing to have that go on vacation. It's a marvelous thing to put all that to rest, to let it dissolve and evaporate, and to start feeling and sensing that just to be alive is enough. Just to be alive without that sense of self, without that self-preoccupation and concern. Not only just to be alive with that, but as we keep practicing, keep letting go, keep dissolving, and keep getting clearer and clearer, there is a sense that something very profound inside of us is coming into a harmony with it, an alignment. We are floating in the current of it.

This is a home. We're at home in it. We're not doing anything that ruffles the waters. We're not doing anything that re-coagulates our experience. Everything can flow. Everything is settled. Everything is peaceful.

Something inside begins feeling a deep trust. Or maybe it's more realistic to say that slowly all the places of mistrust fall away. The fear is often the very reason why people protest the teachings of not-self, because it seems frightening. They don't trust the idea of not being there to take care of themselves. Of course, we should take care of ourselves—hopefully confidently—but it doesn't mean that we have to always be holding on to that.

If you have a lifesaver that saved you in the water, and then you spend the rest of the time on land carrying the lifesaver, that's unnecessary. It might actually be a hindrance. So, the idea is that at some point something dissolves and lets go, so there's no more mistrust, there's no more fear. As we keep breathing, keep sitting, keep being present, we become aligned with that which is clearly not-self.

Then maybe—just maybe—at a time that's not "your" time, a place or situation where you can't make it happen or predict it, the door of emptiness opens for you. And that makes the world of difference.

I have an announcement. Maybe it's a nice pairing with this topic of emptiness, which I was first introduced to in a strong, meaningful, and experiential way when I did my Zen practice—particularly my Zen practice at the San Francisco Zen Center. They have three centers, one in Marin County called Green Gulch Farm.

I'm going to be going back there to teach a two-week retreat at the end of March. It's one of the rare times that I'm going to teach a full Zen retreat. The reason I want to tell you all is that it's going to be teaching about Zen practice—Shikantaza³, "just sitting" in the way they do in Zen—informed by Insight practice. We will see what this Insight practice that we have can really enhance and support the very essence of Zen practice. Maybe you got a taste today of how the signless, the wishless⁴, and emptiness—and how Insight practice leads to that in a similar way—leads to this profound way that the Zen practice is lived.

If you're interested, you can go to the San Francisco Zen Center's website, in particular for Green Gulch Farm. It is a Zen retreat that will be held in a softer way than Zen is usually held and presented—a blending of some of the ways we are at the Insight Retreat Center and some of the ways we can be in Zen practice. In the middle of those two weeks, there will be a five-day Zen sesshin⁵, which is an even more intense kind of dipping into the whole world of Zen practice.

Thank you very much. We have one more talk tomorrow to finish on this three doors of liberation. Thank you.