This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Ah vs. Ouch; Know for Yourself (4 of 5) Harm vs Flourishing. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Guided Meditation: Ah vs. Ouch; Know for Yourself (4 of 5) Harm vs Flourishing

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 09, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Ah vs Ouch (link)

Hello and welcome.

Today, for the meditation, I'd like to keep it very simple. But sometimes, the most radically simple can also be the most sophisticated and profound. It can be deceptively simple, and so we might not take it seriously in all its full value. The simplicity is to be attentive here to the present moment, to be aware of what you're doing.

When sitting quietly with the body relatively still in meditation, the primary doing is your mind. What happens to what you're doing with your mind? If your mind is quiet and you're not thinking much, then the primary doing is the way in which you are attending to the present moment—the way that you're aware, the way you're mindful, the way you're focused. If you're not being aware, if what you're doing is thinking and are a lot or a little involved in thinking, that's what you're doing. If you're scratching an itch, like I did myself just now, that's what I'm doing. If I'm adjusting my posture, I'm doing that. If I'm questioning something or wondering something or trying to fix something, I'm doing that.

Be aware. Be mindful of what you are doing. And as you do, notice if what you're doing has any kind of "ouch" in it. It might be a little bit that hurts, or it could be quite a bit. There could be a big ouch. In Buddhism, in a more sophisticated way, we say there's suffering or there's stress. But it could be very mild, just an ouch.

Or is there an "ah"? If you meet yourself with open awareness, with kindness, with simple awareness, there might be something about that that's an "ah." If you see that you have strong feelings, emotions, or dispositions, and you see it as "this is having a mind or having a heart with irritation or anger, with sadness, with happiness," as opposed to "I am angry. I am sad." This "I am" and taking all of ourselves this way is a little bit of an ouch. It might be, relative to that, just to say, "Oh, this is a heart with... It's only a piece of the whole," maybe has more of an "ah."

So, be mindful of ouch and ah in what you're doing. And even if what you're doing is allowing yourself to rest in being, that's still a kind of doing. And is that resting an "ah" or an "ouch"? Just that.

To begin the doing part, in each step of settling in, see if you can do it with grace or gentleness or beauty, in such a way that there's, even if a very subtle, "ah, this is good."

So, assuming your meditation posture, do so with care, caring for yourself to be in a nice meditation posture, adjusting all kinds of small details of your posture.

Gently closing your eyes. Letting your eyes rest in their eye sockets.

In a caring way, a graceful way, take some deeper breaths, relaxing, softening on the exhale. Letting your breath return to normal.

And on the inhale, with care, with softness, without harshness or strain, let your attention roam around your body to notice where there's tension. And on the exhale, to relax.

On the inhale, feeling the thinking mind. On the exhale, relax and soften the thinking mind.

And to whatever degree your ability to be aware and mindful seems close to the thinking mind, see if as you exhale, you can lower your center of awareness into your torso. Lower the center of your being. Becoming aware of the rhythm of the torso expanding and contracting as you breathe.

And see if as you practice mindfulness, you can stay close to what's "ah." Not necessarily what you're experiencing, but whatever is a doing, an action, an activity of the mind. Be careful that you don't do ouches. See if you can gently, appropriately shift to a simple "ah" in how you're aware.

Is what your mind doing more "ouch" or more "ah"? And maybe there's something about being aware, simple, ordinary, clean awareness, which is one of the deepest "ahs."

As we come to the end of the sitting, there is a way that no matter whether we're feeling really good or feeling lousy, feeling pleasure or pain, that one of the most beneficial ways of being, of doing, is to be very still or quiet at the center of our being. Present, available, open to it all without being for or against, without being reactive, without being identified with anything. If anything, we identify with a quiet, still place within from which awareness observes and knows and feels. An awareness which is free of contention, free of conflict, free of grasping, free of resisting. Confident, clear, still and quiet deep within, in the fullness of our being.

And then to gaze upon the world. Be still and gaze upon the world kindly, without contention, without conflict in the heart. So the heart can be present with goodwill.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings know how to be at rest at the center of their being, confident, clear, knowing peace, knowing non-conflict, knowing a heart set free. May all beings be happy.

Dharmette: Know for Yourself (4 of 5) Harm vs Flourishing (link)

Good morning, and welcome to this fourth talk on a very famous teaching of the Buddha that's usually called the teachings to the Kalama people, so the Kalama Sutta.¹ Here, he gives five criteria in which to know for yourself what to do. It's not exactly the same as to know what to believe, but what to do. And that includes not what to think exactly, but how to think, or what comes along with thinking, with what comes along with speaking, how we speak. It's a criteria for action, for activity, that is also applicable to the kind of subtle or unusual activity that happens in meditation.

These five criteria that he offers are a guideline also to be used in guiding ourselves into a deeper and deeper, or fuller and freer, meditation practice or spiritual practice.

Of the five criteria, what we've done so far was first, wholesome and unwholesome. Then, to be aware of what feels like it's at fault. We have a core instinct to feeling something is off, this is at fault, this is not right, or what is faultless. And then the third thing, which is a little bit more out of a deep self-respect, is this something that is valued or not valued, appreciated or not appreciated, praised or not praised by the people we respect a lot? We respect them for their wisdom, their ethics, their kindness. And out of self-respect, we want to do those things that the people we value a lot demonstrate or manifest in how they live. This is the way to be. So it's not just purely self-referential, this idea of knowing for yourself what to do. There is a reference point to others.

Today, the topic is: does it cause harm or does it bring benefit? We'll do the last one tomorrow. They do not include pleasure and pain. We're not using pleasure and pain as the guide for what to do and not do. It is not a pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. It's not an avoidance of pain just because all pain is wrong. There are ways in which pleasure is pleasure but also can cause harm, a pleasure which is not wholesome, that's a little bit at fault or a lot at fault. There's a way in which pleasure is not an expression of self-respect or not something that the people whose association is really important for us value.

And sometimes, things that are really wholesome to do might cause some discomfort, might be even painful, but it just seems so valuable and important to do it. There are all kinds of things we sacrifice and are willing to feel uncomfortable for just to help other people. It's painful, but it's a wholesome thing to do to help someone. Maybe you need to sleep, but your neighbor needs to get to the emergency room immediately or they're going to die. You're not going to say, "I can't bother because it's so uncomfortable to miss out on my sleep." You willingly deal with the discomfort of lack of sleep in order to get them to the hospital.

So, pleasure and pain are not used as criteria, and that's a little bit unusual. I think a lot of people are deciding things based on pleasure and pain.

This fourth category is: does it cause harm or does it bring a flourishing, a benefit, a deep sense of well-being for people? What's interesting around harm is that to understand what that means, maybe harm and hurt are two different things. I can feel hurt by what someone says or does, but I'm not harmed by it. I'm not injured by it. It feels uncomfortable, it feels something is off, but I'm not injured. I can feel grief. Grief can involve a sense of hurt or strong discomfort, but I'm not harmed by the grief, not injured.

Harm is when it interferes with the functioning of people's lives, from having been wounded or injured in some way, emotionally injured. We can't just hold it spaciously or openly or willingly; it actually interferes with our ability to function in the world. This is a very important distinction because some people don't make that distinction. They treat every hurt as a harm and then go on a mission to right the wrong or to criticize someone else. But I think that ordinary human life involves sometimes feeling hurt, and it doesn't have to be a problem for us. There might be something that needs to be rectified and talked about with someone, but nothing's really been injured. And sometimes the injury has been huge, and then that needs something else.

So, to be sensitive to what harm is. Sometimes we can't be responsible for how other people might feel hurt. That might have much more to do with their background and their conditioning and situation than ours. There can be nothing at fault on our end. We might care for them and have compassionate understanding for them if they feel hurt, but we haven't harmed them.

So there's a difference between hurt and harm. We don't want to harm, we don't want to injure, we don't want to diminish, we don't want to undermine people's ability to live a full life. So we want to ask: does this cause harm to myself? Does it cause harm towards others, or to both self and others? Be careful with that.

Instead, the direction of Buddhist ethics is well-being, is benefit, welfare, where we really know what the deepest, greatest welfare is. Just providing pleasure to someone so they can relax with the pleasure and feel delighted could be wonderful at times, but it doesn't really touch the deepest wellsprings of well-being, of fulfillment, a deep satisfaction in life, or a deep sense of at-homeness and aliveness, vitality, a sense of inherent meaning and purpose, or a deep sense of wholeness, fullness. A way in which healthy emotions seem to saturate us in an uninterrupted way.

There are deep states of well-being that can exist independent of the conditions of our life. We can actually be in situations that are quite physically uncomfortable, maybe even socially uncomfortable, but we can still be rooted in a deep sense of well-being that has to navigate the difficulty of the social or the physical environment. But we know where the deep well-being is.

Some of you, maybe if you meditate regularly, have come out of meditation calmer, more peaceful than usual, a little more contented. And maybe for the next 15 minutes or so, things can happen around you—someone says something or something happens—and it doesn't really affect that deep sense of calm or contentment you have, because that seems to exist on its own. You can see there's a difference; the external environment doesn't have to affect this deep sense of well-being.

In Buddhist practice, we're learning in deeper and deeper ways, fuller and fuller ways, what true well-being is, or the best forms of well-being—the forms of well-being that are not tied or completely dependent on the conditions in the world around us. How do we support this well-being in others? How do we do this for ourselves? There's a relationship between them. There are ways of setting up the environment around us, our relationship to others, how we treat people, how we involve them, that can feel really good and wholesome, that helps support us to really feel, "Oh, this is really beneficial." This is a deep "ah"—not the "ah" of pleasure or relief, but the "ah" of some really deeply true way of being, a real sense of completeness or wholeness or unconflictedness, of just being alive is enough here now, present.

So the criteria here that Buddha is offering is: does it cause harm or is it a benefit? When we involve other people, is what we're saying to them going to be harmful for people or is it going to be beneficial? It could be as simple as someone spending a lot of time making you a meal, and it turns out to be the kind of meal that you really don't like a lot. But they spent a lot of time and love and care making the meal. So, do you say, "Oh, you know, that's disgusting. I can't eat that"? That certainly causes hurt. It might even cause harm to that person's capacity for generosity and love, care, and inspiration.

Or do you say something beneficial and say with enthusiasm, "I'm so appreciative and grateful that you would go to the time to make this. Thank you," with no comment about the fact that it's not a dish that you really like. And you eat it. It's uncomfortable, but because you've been doing mindfulness practice, you know how to hold discomfort. You know how to just allow it to be there. And there's something much more deeper involved, a deeper source within that knows what's important, even for yourself. For you to get worked up around not getting what you prefer, worked up because it's not to your pleasure, you're losing something, losing touch of some deep welfare in yourself. That deep sense of well-being where, of course, you want to care for the other person and be careful what you say.

So, harm or benefit, harm and welfare. I'd like to call this one flourishing. Does it harm people or does it help them flourish? There's an enthusiasm in Buddhism for flourishing, for a sense of abundance. The Pali word for abundance is vipula.² There's even a word for it. And the Buddha instructs us to develop the wholesome to the point of abundance, to the point of fulfillment.

You might want to consider these things, these concepts I've said today. It might be interesting to explore the difference between hurt and harm. Maybe have conversations with people. I don't want my words, my teachings about it to be the last word about this; it's just my opinion. But also this distinction between harm and benefit. What's the best benefit? What's the deepest, fullest benefit that we can provide others and they can provide themselves? That's another interesting conversation you can have with people. What is really beneficial, and what benefits are really the ones that are worth flourishing in?

Thank you very much, and we'll have one more talk tomorrow on the Kalama Sutta.