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Guided Meditation: Effortless; Dharmette: Doors of Liberation (5 of 5) In Harmony - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 14, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Effortless

Warm greetings, and welcome to this meditation session.

One of the orientations of meditation practice is to learn how little we need to do. How little we have to think, plan, remember, intend, or want. How little we have to fantasize and make things up in the mind. How little we have to orient ourselves around "me, myself, and mine" and be oriented around the activity of conceit—the action of identifying, defining, evaluating, and judging ourselves. We practice to discover how little we actually need to do to be alive, breathing happily and contentedly.

We discover that there is a natural way that non-doing leads to peace and happiness. We find that when we have the opposite of peace and happiness, it is because the mind is doing something. It is engaged in some kind of activity: judging, evaluating, comparing, remembering, expecting, or orienting itself around the activity of "selfing"—me, myself, and mine.

It is hard to believe that doing less and less is so wonderful. One of the doings, one of the activities of the mind, is to question it, to debate it, to protest: "We can't do that. It's not okay to do that. We shouldn't do that." We do this without realizing that even the idea "I can't do it" is one more extra activity of the mind that we don't have to do. We learn through meditation how to be alive, fully here and present, without any unnecessary mental activity or thoughts.

Part of moving in this direction involves two complementary guidelines or guideposts. One is that we sense in a deep way that there is something better than mental activities. Maybe we experience a calm or a peace, and we clearly see we lose that when we get involved in the obsessions, thoughts, and reactions of the mind. So, we learn to leave that alone, to feel and sense that this is extra, this is stressful. If I were to think the same way for two weeks, I would be exhausted.

The other guideline is to start having a sense, a perception, or an orientation towards the way that we can be aware that requires no effort on our part. We don't have to choose. We don't have to engage. There is a way of being aware that requires nothing of us except to allow it to be that way, except to put down the doings of the mind. Quiet.

In this meditation, I would like to guide you a bit to become more sensitive to the awareness in which things occur, things are known, and things are felt with no intentional effort—no effort, no doing on your part. See if you can start getting a feel and sense for this amazing opportunity to be fully alive and conscious, and to know a profound peace independent of the doings of the mind: the signifying of the mind, the desires of the mind, the selfing of the mind.

Assume a meditation posture and gently close your eyes.

At first, just feel, sense, and recognize the activities. Your mind, your heart, your body is activated by agitation, concerns, preoccupations, and physical tension. Recognize that the tension in the body has its origin in the doings of the mind.

Recognize the mood or emotions that seem to persist, that seem a little bit solid, held, or oppressive. They too originate in the mind's activity, the doings.

Be aware of the quality of your mind, your mental state. If that is tense, agitated, or a challenge, that too is a result of the activities of the mind.

Gently, slowly, consciously take a few fuller breaths in your torso. On the exhale, relax your body. Relax different parts of your body. Soften your whole body.

As you exhale, soften your emotional body. Relax all the mood or emotions coursing through your body. Allow however you're feeling to melt into the surrounding space with every exhale.

On the exhales, soften and relax the thinking mind. It might help to relax the forehead, the area around your temples, and the whole face if the face is subtly engaged together with thinking.

Then, just allow yourself to be for a few moments. Nothing to do, nothing to be. Relaxing even doing this practice.

In the space of doing nothing, allow the sensations of breathing to arise, to show themselves. Experiment with allowing the breath to appear instead of doing mindfulness. Allowing mindfulness of breathing.

As you are sitting here now, notice what comes into awareness effortlessly. There is no effort on your part. It is not a choice you make, or an engagement. You don't start the awareness; something arises without effort.

It might be some simple, ordinary sensation in the body. One that is maybe often there but is so soft, so quiet, it is seldom known. But it arises in awareness quietly, effortlessly, maybe on the periphery.

Maybe there is a thought that arises effortlessly. You are not straining with it or trying to do anything with it. Recognize that effortless quality.

It might be a sound that occurs unexpectedly. There is the hearing of the sound. In the first moment of that hearing, no effort on your part is required. It just arises. It's just there. After which, maybe almost immediately, there's a reaction. But for this exercise, stay close to recognizing what arises effortlessly.

Let there be a choiceless awareness that simply exists effortlessly. So you can be in harmony with what arises effortlessly.

You might be making effort to be present, to be with your breathing. That's okay. But on the edges around where you make effort—beyond your efforting—notice the awareness arising, the awareness that does so without any planning, involvement, or engagement on your part.

Notice where there can be a harmony, an alignment between an effortless awareness and what comes into awareness effortlessly.

Fixating the mind, being preoccupied, is a doing; it is tension, pressure. Whatever you're doing, whatever pressure and activity is there, let that rest. Let that relax back into where there's no effort. Everything is returning to rest, to peace, if you allow it.

Being attuned to that part of awareness that operates without intention, without purpose, without any reactivity on your part.

As if that effortless, choiceless awareness is a vast, open space—like a vast, quiet lake—drop yourself down into the depths of the space, the depths of yourself, to touch a place of love, kindness, and care. Touch the home for kindness, for friendliness.

Feeling and sensing your capacity to have warm, social emotions towards yourself and towards others in a way that is aligned with the effortless awareness. Maybe it is quite subtle. Maybe it takes the form of wishing you could do this. Even that is significant.

From your place of care, let the heart's affection for others awaken. Express a wish for the welfare of others.

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be safe.

May all beings be peaceful.

May all beings be free.

And may the effortless freedom of your heart support an effortless generosity of care for all people.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Doors of Liberation (5 of 5) In Harmony

Hello. Today I will give the fifth and last talk on this topic of the Three Doors of Liberation.

The first talk was the introduction. The next three were on each of the doors: the Signless, the Wishless, and Emptiness. Today is a concluding talk. It is considered that these topics are part of the depths, or the deepest places, of practice. I have tried during the course of the week to offer you guided meditations that prepared you to understand these teachings. I talked a lot more than usual in the guidance this week, but I hope that served the purpose of somehow conveying something of these potentials we have that represent the Three Doors of Liberation.

The Pali word related to this Vipassanā¹ practice and coming up to the doors of liberation is anuloma². Loma means "hair" and anu means "with." So, "with the hair," or as we say in English, "with the grain." I talked about this earlier in the week, and I wanted to emphasize again today that what we're looking for here is not some kind of believing in the Wishless, the Signless, or Emptiness. It's not a belief system. You don't have to twist your mind philosophically so you understand how these things work. Rather, it is something to come into harmony with—to come into alignment with, to go with the hair, with the grain.

What is that? It is something that, at some point in meditation practice and other places in life, arises or occurs—some kind of experience of well-being that feels right, that feels good. You know, "This is how I want to be aligned. I want to live in this. I want to live this way. This is good."

Generally, for that to happen, especially in meditation, it requires a deep relaxing, a deep quieting of the incessant chatter, the incessant wanting, and the incessant signifying, judging, and evaluating of everything that comes. "This is good, this is bad." That is a signification. That is signifying. There is the assigning of value, and then there is what is assigned. That is not exactly in the objects of the world but is what we project onto them.

Part of the reason to quiet and relax in meditation is not to have a nice calm feeling of stress reduction. The point is not to be calm. The point is to quiet the incessant activity of the mind enough that we start entering into a wholeness, a fullness, a calm, and a peace where we start getting a glimmer of something that seems really invaluable. We start getting a glimmer of a kind of peace, a kind of deep well-being, and a kind of freedom that comes when we are not caught in the chatter, not caught in the signifying, not caught in the "selfing" and identification with everything. "What's in it for me?" That can go on incessantly, non-stop sometimes.

In a deep kind of way, we begin appreciating what our society often doesn't point to. Our society points to wanting, having, getting, protecting, judging, being angry, being afraid. All of those are activities of the mind where the mind is caught, tense, and busy. There is no monetary value in a mind that gets really peaceful and calm, that's not about something and not preoccupied by something.

We are learning to recognize that there is a phenomenal inner wealth, phenomenal inner benefit, to a deep state of peace where a whole different orientation of how to live our life can happen. We start recognizing what is Signless—that which doesn't make signs, doesn't do the assigning, doesn't make the signifying of everything. We recognize that way of being that isn't always about what we want and don't want incessantly, but a way of just resting. Being on vacation with desires and just being able to rest and be content—profound, deep contentment.

And to put to rest—for some of us—the incessant preoccupation with self. Such a high percentage of depression, of anger, of fear has its roots in a certain kind of self-preoccupation, self-identification, and self-survival. Of course, we have to do that to some degree, but to be caught in that, spinning in it, and living in the small world of self is painful. To start getting a sense of how it is possible to be alive, present, and calm without all that selfing going on is to experience Emptiness—the freedom from all that selfing.

In this Vipassanā insight tradition, the pathway to these doors starts most classically in insight. It starts with having a deep insight into inconstancy, impermanence—anicca³ in Pali—the way things come and go and the changing nature of things.

As the mind quiets and gets stiller, we learn that some of the ways in which we don't see that shifting, changing nature is because of the activity of the mind that projects or assumes constancy, assumes permanence in a world that's actually always changing. As we let go of that, quiet that activity, and start floating, swimming in this world of change, we start seeing that nothing that we signify can stick. Any assigning or projecting of permanence especially doesn't stick.

If we assign or signify that "this thing that's happening right now is where the happiness is," but if it is inconstant, then we will be disappointed when that goes away. Assigning something out there to make us happy, or thinking that the solution to everything is to have a really strong self, hold on to it, assert oneself, prove oneself—all this self game—there is no end to it.

If we see deeply the impermanent, changing nature, we see how a good part of this preoccupation with self is an attempt to reify, to fixate, to hold on to something that can't be held onto because everything is changing. Change begins to show us all that. We relax the signifying, the assigning of meaning, the assigning of value, the assigning of purpose. Relaxing into what does not do that: that is called the Signless.

Impermanence and change show us that clinging to things for happiness is a misplaced place to find happiness. Clinging to anything is suffering; it is unsatisfactory. There is a way of settling back, relaxing deeply. There is a becoming whole, undivided in ourselves, and confident in that. That brings a sense that we like, of Wishlessness. We don't need to have desires. We don't have to want and not want things in the world and be caught in that. We can just settle back and trust this deep place of well-being.

Then, as we start seeing the impermanence of things and the unsatisfactoriness of clinging to them, we see that also in relationship to all the ways in which we play the self game, caught up in self-preoccupation. We begin feeling that so much of what we think is self is not really a permanent, abiding, reliable self to hold on to. We let go of holding on to any kind of self. Maybe we surf with the selves that arise and pass in different settings, but we don't hold to anything. We begin appreciating that nothing is really the self. Nothing is really the permanent self or "who I really am." It's just a constantly shifting and changing kaleidoscope of different kinds of selves over time.

Then, to be able to let go of all this selfing and appreciate that, in essence, in some very deep way, nothing qualifies as the self. We have a sense that everything then is the absence of this self that is attributed to things, assigned to things, clung to in things. We relax that and we see Emptiness.

It isn't just a matter of seeing all these things—the Signless, the Wishless, the Emptiness—or experiencing them. As we keep practicing, the idea is to be in harmony with it, to be aligned with it. There is some kind of sweetness there, some kind of wonderful feeling of delight and joy. It is like being in a nice peaceful river and swimming out into the middle of the river where there's a current, and feeling like the current picks you up and carries you gently along.

It is that entering into the current of this effortless place of the Signless, the Wishless, and Emptiness. When we allow, when we trust this current, when we trust this harmony, when we trust this way of being, then we create the conditions—we support the possibility—that the last remnants of mistrust, the last remnants of ways in which we hold on, the last remnants of conceit have a chance to relax, let go, and release.

So that there's a release of all clinging, all attachment. That is what the Doors of Liberation are. That final release into that world that the Wishless, the Signless, and Emptiness lead to.

I hope this has been meaningful for you. I hope you could follow along and don't make a lot of significations around this. Don't make a lot of desires around this, and don't make a lot of self around doing and understanding or not understanding this. Just trust that you can start doing less and less of this ongoing signification, ongoing attachment to searching for happiness outside of oneself, and ongoing conceit and self-building that is so common for many people.

I am going to be on retreat again next week, and you're very fortunate to have Shelly Graf⁴ coming to teach for you. She's taught here before. She's a teacher in Santa Barbara and graduated from our teacher training at IMC. She's a really wise woman, been practicing meditation for decades, and I'm just really delighted that you'll have a chance to be with her on Monday next week.

So, thank you very much, and I'll be back the week after.