This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Happiness of Absences; Four Truths of Happiness (2 of 4) Conditions for Happiness. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Guided Meditation: Happiness of Absences; Dharmette: Four Truths of Happiness (2 of 5) Conditions for Happiness - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 20, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Happiness of Absences

Hello everyone, and welcome to our meditation.

One of the perhaps unusual aspects of Buddhist spirituality is its emphasis on absence—the absence of things. With some reflection, we can appreciate how much happiness can come from absence.

Right now, I am sitting where it is warm at IMC¹, and there is the absence of the cold that is outside. It looks like it might rain, so there is the absence of rain in this room. I feel safe from the cold and the wet outside; it feels cozy and nice to be here.

Coming down to IMC this morning, there was a beautiful sunrise in the slivers of empty space where the clouds weren’t on the horizon. I was delighted by the beautiful colors, but part of what stood out was the absence of clouds in those slices of the sky.

There can be the happiness of not having to deal with any responsibilities—to sit in meditation and not have to go to a meeting, do chores, or do anything else. It is just nice. The absence feels good. Absence is a condition for a sense of contentment and happiness. The absence of desires, the absence of conceit, and the absence of hostility can feel so good—so wonderful.

Absence is not something that we are trained to focus on or to look for. The mind is usually interested in something. If we are thinking, we are thinking about something. But absence—the absence of thought, the absence of a subject to be thinking about—can be so nice. That peace.

So, assuming a meditation posture and closing the eyes, take a few moments to feel your body. Maybe rock your body back and forth or side to side as a way of connecting to your body, feeling your body, and loosening your body.

Then, slowly come to stillness with the body. Having moved the body a bit, the stillness might highlight the absence of movement. It can highlight the sensations of the body that are still.

Taking a few long, slow, deep breaths, release tension in your body as you exhale. When I was first introduced to Zen, I was taught to flap my elbows like a chicken. It made me smile, but I also learned that it could loosen things up in the arms, so the arms aren't somehow unconsciously held tight.

Let the breathing return to normal. As you exhale, relax the thinking mind. Relax the grip thinking has on whatever subject of thought concerns your thinking.

Also, take a broad, global sense of you sitting here, feeling the body as broadly as you easily can. With this broad awareness of the body, appreciate the absence of busyness, of activity, of running around, of being in commute traffic. Just appreciate some of the ways of being which are not here, and how it allows your body—your very being—to have breathing room. To have space to just be.

If you do feel safe in the place you are meditating, appreciate the absence of danger. We live in a world where many people live in danger. It can provide a deep sense of well-being and contentment, at least for these few minutes, to be meditating in safety.

Perhaps, to the degree to which there is an absence of distractions, there can be a happiness to just being here—alive, breathing, attentive, and engaged in the practice. This practice has tremendous meaning, purpose, and benefit. What a good thing to have this practice.

With whatever global feeling of well-being that is available to you, let that well-being be massaged, touched, or stroked by your breathing. The expansion of the rib cage and the belly touches and moves into whatever global feeling of well-being you have. On the exhales, let go, settling into the middle of this well-being, one breath at a time.

A means of contentment, of well-being, is not to focus your thoughts on what is wrong, but to focus on what is absent here. What is absent that feels really good and supportive? That allows your muscles to relax and your heart to settle? Maybe it even allows your heart to smile. It is so good to just be here in the simplicity of this moment, allowing a sense of well-being to support mindfulness.

As we approach the end of the sitting, see if you can feel whatever sense of well-being there is in your body, your mind, and your heart. If you are a little more calm or settled than when you started the meditation, if you are a little bit more still or quiet—is there any well-being in that settledness, in that calm?

Even the slightest sense of well-being in being here and now, in this body, in this mind, in this heart, at this time—let the influence of that well-being register for you. Absorb it. Take it in like the warmth on a cold day. Taking in the warmth of well-being, contentment, and happiness.

Then, imagine that you meet someone who is friendly and kind, and you meet them with your well-being. You meet them with your contentment. How are you when you are calm, relaxed, and at ease? How are you in being with someone who is undemanding, kind, and relaxed?

Might there be some good will, some friendliness that you have?

If you do, maybe you can let your good will now spread out across the lands. Let your good will spread to include all beings.

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

May your well-being contribute to the well-being of others. Don't sacrifice your own well-being, because then you have less to offer others.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Four Truths of Happiness (2 of 5) Conditions for Happiness

Hello everyone, and welcome to this second talk on the Four Truths of Happiness. The second truth for today is the truth of the conditions for happiness.

This is chosen carefully because, rather than calling it the causes of happiness, they are the conditions for happiness. This is significant. If there is a cause for happiness, the chances are that happiness becomes too dependent on that cause. If something has to happen so that we can be happy, the happiness becomes fragile. Chances are that happiness is not very deep or pervasive. It could be genuine to be caused by something, and it can touch us wonderfully at times, but it is not something which can persist very well except in memory when the cause is not there.

In Buddhism, there is a lot of emphasis on understanding the conditions for maturing in this Dharma—maturing in the Buddhist path. It is a path that comes with the arising of joy, happiness, delight, gladness, and contentment—a whole slew of feelings that belong to the family of well-being. They are an integral part of developing this practice. But these things are not caused by anything; rather, the conditions come in place for them to arise.

Sometimes, when the conditions come into place, they teach us something about the availability of happiness and well-being that maybe is here much more often than we realize. This is because some of the conditions are absences.

For example, the absence of being unethical—the absence of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxication—is phenomenal. This is understood in Buddhism to be a source of a feeling of safety, happiness, contentment, and relief. It comes from an absence of doing these things, an absence of causing harm. This is a condition for a sense of delight, happiness, and relief—especially if we know the alternative. Some people's lives get ruined by being unethical; their lives become very stressful. But to not have any of that, and to have the freedom—the fresh air in the heart—can be a sense of tremendous well-being.

We learn about the absence of being unethical, and we get a sense, "Oh, that happiness is always available." It is not dependent on something happening; it is dependent on an absence of something. If we stay close to that absence, it is always available. If we make that absence a "thing" that is going to cause us to be happy, then we are already caught in the idea that there has to be a certain way. But the idea is to just trust the conditions.

The absence of stress in our lives can provide a sense of well-being. That teaches us the same thing: that there is a sense of well-being, contentment, and ease that is possible when we don't have stress. So, why get stressed?

That is the big question that a mature Dharma practitioner would ask themselves: "Why get stressed?" Why get stressed when maybe the alternative is so much better? See what kind of answers come. Maybe have a discussion with yourself or with friends about this whole question. Why do you allow yourself to get stressed? Why is it so important? Question it.

The absence of stress can provide well-being, a sense of ease, and a lot of goodness that can grow and develop. It fosters room in the heart for something to come. The absence of the hindrances²—the absence of greed, hate, and delusion; the absence of anxiety—these can all provide a sense of relief, ease, and harmony. A sense that things are good in the world, at least locally, here and now. We are allowed to feel the goodness of that.

Don't sacrifice that goodness for anything. If you think the conditions in the political world, the climate, or the environment require you to give away your inner goodness—to abandon yourself to anxiety, anger, dismay, or confusion—that is tragic. It is from the very sense of inner well-being, ease, and goodness that something profound can happen. Even if you are going to be involved in any of those causes, can you do it from that place of your own goodness? Your own well-being that comes from the absence of giving yourself away? The absence of hostility, greed, and anxiety?

There is a tremendous condition for happiness that can develop and grow which has a lot to do with an absence rather than a cause. An absence allows something to grow. Part of this field of goodness, this field of well-being when there is space for it, is the growth of wholesome qualities and states within us.

We have natural capacities for some things—perhaps different for different people. Some people have a natural capacity to care—beautiful caregiving, caring for the welfare and well-being of others. Some people have a natural capacity for generosity, kindness, friendliness, compassion, and love. Some people have a natural capacity for calm, honesty, and integrity. We all have some of this, perhaps.

As we have these absences, we are less preoccupied. Breaking the precepts (being unethical) requires some kind of preoccupation. Being caught in things that are stressful means we are somehow preoccupied. Being caught in anger, hostility, dismay, and anxiety—we are preoccupied. To be unoccupied, or to occupy ourselves in a deep way without being preoccupied, gives room for wholesome qualities to grow. These are invaluable in the Dharma.

If we act on these wholesome qualities—if we act from generosity, care, love, kindness, or friendliness—they have space in the emptiness of greed, hate, and delusion. They have space in the emptiness of stress to evoke, fuel, or strengthen an inner sense of happiness and well-being.

So, part of what we do in Buddhism is appreciating absences that bring us a better sense of well-being. We also appreciate that certain things, when they are acted on, are further conditions for well-being. Not that generosity is seen as a cause for happiness, but the generous sensibility fosters the growth of more well-being. Ethical integrity fosters the growth of well-being.

We are more gardeners than we are engineers. We are not engineering ourselves into happiness in Buddhism, but we are planting the seeds. We are tending the field, tending the garden. We are nourishing the plants, feeding them, watering them, and keeping the weeds out of the garden so they can grow well.

We have weeds inside of ourselves, and we are going to be very careful with them so that they don't suffocate or shade out the good plants that are growing in there. Appreciate the absence of weeds. Appreciate the clarity and the breathing room that provides. And then, appreciate that there is goodness in us; there are wholesome qualities within us. Don't sacrifice those. Don't abandon them, because then you abandon yourself.

In some ways, the instinct towards hostility and aversion, the instinct towards desire, and the instinct towards conceit are, oddly enough, ways in which we give ourselves away. We lose ourselves in those because we are limiting ourselves to a particular concern. We are defining ourselves by a very narrow range of what it means to be a human being. To give ourselves away that way is quite sad.

Don't give yourself away. Stay present in the absence. Stay present in the goodness. Stay present for the whole—the breathing room where there is fresh air for your heart and for your body. It is in that breathing room, where we are all there for ourselves and don't limit ourselves with preoccupations, where there is a condition for the arising of happiness.

If you want to be happy, contribute the conditions for that. Don't search for a cause.

If you think you are going to be happy by going to Disneyland, you might be, but that is not going to create lasting happiness unless you go to Disneyland in this empty, open place with your own goodness flowing out of it. And then, if that is the case, maybe you don't need to go to Disneyland, because the core happiness is not dependent on Disneyland. The core happiness is already in you. You could do anything—you could even go to the local soup kitchen to support people who are hungry and maybe feel even happier than you would if you went to Disneyland.

The second truth of happiness is that a profound, meaningful, Dharmic happiness arises from the conditions that we put in place, not the causes.

Thank you. May you look for the conditions today, not in the world per se, but in yourself—conditions that you can stay close to so you go through the day happier. Perhaps you can put a rubber band or a string around one of your fingers as a reminder that throughout the day you keep looking for how you can create the inner conditions—the absences—so that you touch into a natural sense of well-being, ease, and happiness that comes when you don't give yourself away.

Thank you.