This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Simplicity of Now; Introduction to Mindfulness (24 of 25) Active vs. Receptive. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Dharmette: Introduction to Mindfulness (24 of 25) Active vs. Receptive; Guided Meditation: Simplicity of Now - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on February 22, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Simplicity of Now

So hello, and welcome. I find it a little amazing that this is the 24th talk of these 25 on introduction to mindfulness meditation. I feel fortunate to be able to spend this time on these basic instructions and develop it this way, so thank you for the opportunity.

Today, one of the hallmarks of mindfulness practice is its simplicity. There are a lot of instructions that can be given, but those instructions should be considered more descriptive than prescriptive, in the sense that they describe what we come across as we're present, attentive, and attuned to our experience. The instructions, in a sense, are a map of the important ranges of your experience that you then bring the simplicity of mindfulness to. Or, said differently, you allow experience to come to you, and then you have the simplicity of recognition: "Oh, this is how it is. This is how it is. It's this way now."

You might try this little sentence as you practice, either saying it in your mind or just recognizing it silently: "This is the way it is now. This is the experience now." Keep it that simple. But the word "now" at the end kind of reminds you that it's just the experience of now. It's not forever; it'll change in some way. It'll shift and change, become something else, and appear in a different way. This is the experience now.

In the course of this "now," sometimes we experience breathing, sometimes body sensations, sometimes emotions, sometimes thoughts, sometimes sounds. What I'll introduce today is attitude—the general mood or attitude with which we're being mindful.

Mindfulness often is not so simple. We come along with subtle or big agendas, like we want something to happen, we want something to go away, we want to attain something, or we want to hold on to something. We might carry an attitude of "this is difficult," or an attitude of "this is too easy, and I'm a sophisticated person," or an attitude of being for what's happening or being against it.

As an attitude, it's not really articulated. It's not exactly a thought or even a belief; if you just rely on what you're thinking, you might not even recognize this. But it's the background mood with which you're being aware. It acts as a little bit of a wind drag to mindfulness. It keeps it from being simple. It gives it weight. It gives it tension, strain, and hesitation. It isn't that we have to fix this attitude; it's just one more thing that's recognized. "It's like this now. This is how it is now." See it clearly, recognize it clearly, and keep it simple. It can be so simple that in the recognition, there's a freedom or a peace in the simplicity. And if it seems boring, that's just one more attitude: "Oh, this is how it is now."

So we'll sit this way for the rest of the sitting silently. You can settle in on your own, relaxing and settling. Then maybe, if you'd like, you could use this phrase: "It's like this now," or "This is how it is now." Keep an eye out from the beginning, middle, and end of the sitting for the attitude with which you're being mindful. If it's not obvious, don't worry about it, but you might keep an eye out and see what it is. See what happens if you simply recognize it. "Oh, this is how it is now." Hold it in awareness, and then maybe continue with your breathing. We'll start quietly, silently this time.

Whatever is happening, recognize it as simply as you can. Recognize what's obvious in the moment, and if what you're aware of is vague, just know it as, "Now I'm experiencing vagueness." If the mind is drifting off a lot, "This is what a drifting off mind is like." Any attitude, any feeling of being for or against something, any background desire or aversion: "This is what's happening now." No need to go searching. And if you are searching, recognize that you're searching. Simple mindfulness of what comes into awareness now.

With the reference point of keeping it simple, with a reference point of "just now," you might feel or recognize the pull away from that—the drive to do other things besides just the simplicity of now, this experience. It's possible to know and recognize, "This is the drive away from the present moment. This is a drive away from mindfulness."

As we come to the end of this sitting, take a few moments to recognize whatever sense of simplicity is available. Notice if you're a little bit calmer or more settled, or if your awareness is a little bit more clear, or if there's a little more acceptance of the challenges that are here. In this simplicity, be still and gaze upon what's happening kindly.

Bring to mind that you're going to come out of meditation soon and return to your normal, or more complicated, life. From the vantage point of the meditation, be simple for a few moments and gaze upon it kindly. Consider the people you'll encounter—both people you know and people you don't know, who you'll pass in the streets, meet in stores, or at work. Imagine yourself with kind eyes, a kind, friendly disposition to everyone you pass, see, or encounter.

Are there any attitudes that get in the way of that simplicity of kindness? If there are, recognize them: "This is what's happening now." Then return to whatever degree of kindness and goodwill you can have. Even if you can't do it, aspire to be able to wish everyone well-being: May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. May kindness be carried in my gaze of the suffering world. Thank you.

Dharmette: Introduction to Mindfulness (24 of 25) Active vs. Receptive

So hello, and welcome to this penultimate teaching on introduction to mindfulness meditation.

One of the useful distinctions to make is between instructions in meditation which are prescriptive and those that are descriptive. The same instructions can be offered in both ways. Prescriptive means "this is what you do," so you apply yourself to do something. Descriptive means it describes what you'll be aware of.

The first is a little bit more active. Some people find it very helpful to engage actively with meditation. It's almost like play for them, or they just naturally enter into the world of doing something, so it's really nice for them to engage in instructions like, "This is what you do." One way to do that is to have a checklist to go through. You can take the core elements of these past five weeks: mindfulness of breathing, mindfulness of body, mindfulness of emotions, mindfulness of thinking. You can almost go through and do a little bit on each one. Start with the breathing, then recognize what's happening in the body, then emotions, and then thinking. Or you can do it backwards. Some people find that having a very clear program keeps them engaged and focused, and it becomes a prescriptive practice of what they do.

Other people find that that's not helpful. They find it's more helpful to sit back and not be so much in the active, directive mode of practice, but rather be more in a receptive mode. There, the instructions become more descriptive. If you are present with an open, available awareness to present-moment experience, different things will come at different times, whatever is loudest, in a sense. Sometimes you're aware of the sound a neighbor is making, and that's what's most predominant. Sometimes it's the breathing, sometimes it's an emotion, sometimes thinking. It varies what comes into awareness. It might feel almost random, but it feels so relaxing and nice to not be the "doer," to just be in this available, present moment with "this now, here, this."

Sometimes it's useful to know both ways, and recognize that there are times when we're more active in the practice, more prescriptive about what we're doing, and other times it's more descriptive, just describing what arrives in awareness. For example, when we start practice, it's usually a little bit more active. But as we settle, get concentrated, and become still, there's less and less that we want to be doing, and we increasingly enter a receptive mode. If you go further, even being receptive is too much doing; we're just there, here, and phenomena and experiences arise without receiving them or going to them to experience them. They're just there.

It is helpful to be aware that there are different modes in which we're being mindful. Sometimes we are a little more active, directing attention to the breathing. Sometimes we are more—I don't know if the word "passive" is the right word—doing less and being more aware. Rather than directing attention, there's no choice or direction for what we're aware of, except for what comes and arises.

Then there's a combination of the two, which is a bit more what I like to teach. The default is always to have attention directed, available, or receptive to the breathing—the rhythm of breathing, the experience of breathing. That provides a steadiness and a subtleness as we go along. The rhythm and beat of the breathing is a bit of a protection from the mind wandering off unknowingly. We can spend a long time just drifting off in thought. Because we keep the breath at the center, we're more likely to notice when we start drifting off. If the mind is just receptive, quiet, and available to everything, then in a certain way everything seems okay and the mind drifts off, and we hardly notice it. There isn't a clarity of knowing, "Oh, the mind is now thinking."

The combined approach to these active and more receptive modes is to use the breath as a default, but then whatever arises in any place that is more predominant becomes the focus of meditation. If it's a sound outside, we do listening meditation. If it's a sensation in the body, we do mindfulness of sensation. If it's thinking, mindfulness of thinking. If it's an emotion, mindfulness of emotion.

It might seem random, but as it works out, sometimes as the mind gets quieter, stiller, and more concentrated, it's like we go through layers within us, and different parts stand out. Sometimes more body, sometimes more emotion, sometimes the more cognitive aspects of the mind.

All along, we want to be attentive to whether there is an attitude being carried in the mind. Is there some subtle mood in the awareness, in the mindfulness? Maybe there's a subtle, or not so subtle, striving—trying to get something. Maybe there's a subtle sense of conceit¹ in the Buddhist use of the word—some idea that "I am," "I have to do it," "I have to be successful," and "I'm the controller, the agent, the doer." That is a little bit extra. It's like a mood or a flavor that adds a little bit of weight or wind drag to the mindfulness. It keeps the mindfulness from being really clear, open, and relaxed in a simple way.

There might be background attitudes we carry of being a little bit aversive to everything that happens, or an orientation towards always wanting something. With the slightest little movement, we become aware of something and immediately react: "I want that" or "I don't want that." The awareness is selective, seeing, "Where's that button I push to make it go away?"

Since the hallmark of mindfulness meditation is simplicity, having descriptive instructions that just describe what comes into awareness is a really good reference point for learning how to keep it simple and trying not to have agendas. In the active mode, it's a little bit too easy to have agendas that come along with our purposes, values, and desires that are more complicated than things need to be.

Going back and forth between a little more active and a little more receptive mode can help us work through some of the extra baggage we carry, so that the basic practice becomes simpler and simpler. Just being here, showing up, being present with this: "This is what I'm experiencing now. This is listening. This is a sound now. This is an in-breath now. This is a sensation now."

With each movement of "now" like this, it's like the doors and windows have been opened, and we allow ourselves to feel that experience more fully. The cognitive part—saying something like, "This is my experience now"—is a prelude to okaying this, to allowing yourself to really feel and experience the experience of the moment. As I've said earlier in this series, sometimes it's nice to take three breaths with something that's arisen: "This is the experience now," and then breathe with it three times before returning to the breathing.

I hope that what I said today doesn't promote a more complicated meditation for you, but maybe gives you some options or understanding of choices you can make to try to keep your meditation simple and do it in a way that's appropriate for you, what's needed for you now.

The final thing I'll say is that a good reflection to do near the end of the meditation, when the meditation is over, is to think back through what happened. Could you have been simpler? Could you have been more mindful? What would it have taken? At the end of the meditation, reflect on how it went to learn from it.

For example, it's easy to drift off in thought and think about something that's really unnecessary without knowing that you're doing it or how much time you're spending that way. But when you do the review, you might think, "Wow, I just spent 15 minutes thinking about the Great American Novel I'm going to write, but I don't even know how to write. I'm just kind of in the fantasy. I think I could have woken up earlier. I could have been a little bit more diligent in being present. Let's try to do a little bit better tomorrow." That review of meditation, seeing what you can learn and where the traps were, where you got off track, can be very helpful so you become your own teacher in how to find your way with this practice.

So we'll continue tomorrow, the last in this 25-talk series. Also tomorrow, when we finish at 7:45 in California, 24 hours from now, we'll switch over to Zoom. You can stay on YouTube if you want, but then you won't be able to participate in a Zoom kind of way. We'll have a community meeting. I might have some things to say about our YouTube community and what's happening at IMC. I can take some questions from you and offer the responses I have. We'll do a breakout group where some of you can meet each other, say hello, and maybe meet some of the people who've chatted over this time. It will probably be about 45 minutes, maybe a little bit longer.

Those of you who come, I look forward to having you there. I'll post the information on IMC's "What's New" probably by this evening, and I'll also post it in the chat tomorrow a number of times at the beginning and end of the sittings so you can find it. You'll hear more instructions tomorrow.

Finally, I'll say that the Zoom room will be password protected. The password will be metta², the Pali³ word for loving-kindness. It's spelled M-E-T-T-A. This will all be clear in the other places as well. So thank you.