This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Don't Make it Worse; Core Teachings (2 of 5) No Views. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Don't Make it Worse; Dharmette: Core Teachings (2 of 5) No Views - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on June 11, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Don't Make it Worse

Hello everyone and welcome to this meditation broadcast from Insight Meditation Center. I'm delighted to be with you and the names that I recognize on the chat, it's also very wonderful to see. Thank you for being here.

Yesterday in the guided meditation, the focus was on ease and recognizing what takes you away from the ease. So the simple instruction for meditation could be: set yourself at ease and notice how you lose the ease or what takes you away from the ease. In doing that, we start seeing the activities of the mind where we get agitated or shut down or confused or get caught in thoughts or desires or aversions. And then the question is, if you see that, what do you do? And what we do is, we're mindful of it. We see it clearly. What we're doing is kind of a truth telling: "Oh, look at that. Look what I'm doing. I was at ease and now I'm less at ease." Just that information begins shifting maybe our priorities, shifting what we want to devote ourselves to.

So today I want to orient a little differently. At any given moment, set yourself at ease and calm, whatever you're capable of, even if it's ever so slight. Let yourself be at ease and don't make it worse. Don't make the situation worse. Don't choose to follow the option which brings you more unease, brings you stress, brings you distress, kind of makes you more agitated or less at ease. Don't make it worse.

It might be the situation is pretty bad, pretty difficult for you in some kind of way, and life can be that way for sure. This simple teaching is: don't make it worse. And what "worse" means in the subtlest forms of that is that the mind gets fixated on something, gets stuck on something, gets focused on something where the mind loses its ability to have a relaxed, open attentiveness to the present moment, where the awareness does not flow along with the present moment but it gets caught in something, involved in something, and reactive to something. It might be caught up in judgments, might be caught up in opinions, preferences. So, don't make it worse.

Whatever way you are, let's see if that could be an orientation for this morning and see what you learn in that process. You don't have to do it well, because if you don't do it well and then feel discouraged or upset about that, you're making it worse. Just allow things to be, don't make them worse. And if anything else, let yourself be at ease.

Assuming a meditation posture and gently closing the eyes.

Become aware of your body, the whole body, as globally as it's easy for you. And are you more aware of the front of your body or the back of the body, or equally throughout? Are you more leaning to the right or to the left, or is it balanced? Within this global whole body, take a few deeper breaths and relax the whole body as you exhale. Breathing in, relaxing.

Letting your breathing return to normal. With a normal breath, relax your thinking mind. Soften the mind. Maybe the thinking mind can broaden and spread wide. As you exhale, in whatever way is easiest for you or however slight, set your heart at ease.

And then stay attentive during this meditation to the breathing, breathing in and breathing out. And stay also attentive to what your mind is doing. Is there any way in which you're meditating or doing anything else with the mind that diminishes the quality of your well-being, how you are? Do you somehow make it worse?

The more calm and quiet and centered you are, the more subtle is the recognition of what makes a situation worse, the option which is less desirable because the mind has gotten activated or agitated. Maybe in ordinary life it would be a normal state to be in, but in meditation, there are ordinary states of being which are not the best option. Avoid the options that make it worse. Stay close to your sense of ease. Even if you feel uneasy, be attentive that you don't make it worse. Stay with the situation, breathe.

Sometimes the mind drifts off in thought and our state becomes worse, becomes more distressed or stressed or agitated. Sometimes it's almost second nature to judge and find out what's wrong, and the situation becomes worse. Allow yourself to be as simple and as at ease as you can. With ease and simplicity, stay here with your breathing, appreciating how simplicity and ease and attention can be a protection from the automatic ways that we might make it worse for ourselves.

And then as we come to the end of this sitting, take a moment to recognize if there's something about the calm or the subtleness, the ease or peace, clarity, or anything about the meditation that provides you with a reference point to recognize when you are making it worse for yourself. Maybe by reacting, judging, coming to fixed conclusions, resisting, pushing away. Do you have a heightened sensitivity for that based on how you are now at the end of the meditation?

And then may it be that as you go into your life today, whatever way is next for you, that the benefits of this insight, the benefit of this meditation can be applied to not making any situation worse for ourselves, for others, by what we say, by what we do, even by what we think. And to refrain from what makes it worse. And may we hope that in doing so, the benefits of this meditation are something that we can share with others. May we care for others. May their well-being be of our interest in our orientation. May we live for the welfare and happiness of others. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

Dharmette: Core Teachings (2 of 5) No Views

The theme for this week is to try to share with you some of the building blocks, the foundations for my particular orientation for teaching Buddhism, teaching the Dharma¹. Maybe from causes and conditions, life experiences, personality, all kinds of reasons, teachers have their own take, their own orientation. And so I thought maybe it'd be useful to try to provide you with mine that's behind how I teach, maybe not always so evident.

Yesterday I emphasized how, at the rock bottom foundation of what motivates me in the Dharma and guides me in the Dharma, is a sensitivity to suffering and the end of suffering, and the possibility of a radical end to suffering. The possibility of a lessening of suffering for myself and for others. And there are times in my life that I thought that was a rather simplistic orientation to be the center of the Buddhism that I practice and teach, but I've come to appreciate that it's actually quite a profound orientation. It's philosophically profound, doctrinally profound, Buddhistically profound, because suffering and the end of suffering is a thread that goes through all aspects of our lives and it touches everything. And the end of suffering similarly kind of touches everything we do and everything we are in a deep, deep way. So it's a profound thing, and for me, that's enough for what the Dharma is about.

If I take it one more step, I have an orientation, maybe from my Zen practice partly, maybe based on my background, that I kind of have an orientation to not settle, to not center on any view, any philosophy, any point of view. Even though I just provided one—the end of suffering—but not to center, not to rest there, not to hold on to that as being "it." And so if anything, the idea of having no view is the view that I like, to not rely on any particular understanding, but rather to rely on awareness, to rely on letting go, to rely on showing up fresh for the next moment, not bringing anything with me.

As a teacher, I listen to people as they talk to me about their practice, their life, and one of the things I'm listening for is: do they have a view that they're holding on to? Do they have an orientation that maybe is a useful one, but they're a little bit too attached to it? Orientation and views are useful and they have their place in practice and in life, but they also have their limitation. Sooner or later in Buddhist practice, we see the limitation of all views and the possibility of living without views, of being without views, maybe even if it's just temporarily in deep meditation.

Along with that is not having some idea of anything that is ultimate, a view about something that is the best and the most wonderful and the ultimate experience, the ultimate reality, the ultimate teachings; that something is ultimate and better than anything else. This is an orientation that we see in the very earliest Buddhist texts, the earliest teachings perhaps of the Buddha in a text called the Book of Eights, the Aṭṭhakavagga². I have a translation of it that's published, the title of the book is called The Buddha Before Buddhism. The reason for that title is that the orientation there kind of undercuts all views and lends itself to this idea that there's nothing ultimate. To have some idea of "ultimate" is a view, and it sets up a contrast with what is not ultimate and with other people's religion. The earliest teachings of Buddhism kind of pulled the rug from underneath any attempt to make Buddhism into a religion that has ultimate kind of value and purpose. Some people find this kind of idea maybe even offensive, difficult, unappealing. I find it liberating. I find it just delightful to be able to live without holding on to any view at all.

Related to this idea is, in later Mahāyāna Buddhism, there are two contrasting philosophical traditions. One is called the middle tradition or the middleness tradition, and the other is called the mind-only tradition or Yogācāra³, which means the practitioners of yoga. The Madhyamaka⁴, the emptiness people, believe that there was nothing which is not empty. Everything is insubstantial, everything is impermanent, shifting, changing, everything is conditional, contingent. And there's no place to land with attention, to take a stand, to hold on to anything. And this is just freedom, just to allow everything to just move through us and for us to be part of the river of life and just find our way navigating the river, but no place to stand. The Yogācāra school, the mind-only school, believed the same thing, that everything is empty except for the mind or except for consciousness.

We find, even in the modern world, a divide between those teachers who want to emphasize that everything is empty but there's also consciousness, a form of consciousness or mind which is ultimate and transcendent, and those who are more Madhyamaka, these middle people, that believe in the emptiness of all things and nothing has ultimacy, nothing has any permanence. I'm more in this Madhyamaka orientation. I'm more in the orientation that doesn't want to take anything, doesn't see anything as ultimate, as permanent, as the thing. Everything is in the process of flow, everything's in the river of life. And that to take a stand anywhere—in a view, in a position, in the idea that anything is ultimate—makes a situation worse. It adds a little bit of stress, a little bit of holding on.

To be this explicit about it, I kind of have some reluctance to do, because I don't want to be dismissive or be disrespectful for people who have a different orientation. And people who have a different orientation are phenomenal practitioners and have come to their understanding from a very, very deep practice. Sometimes the way to harmonize these two is that it's like a difference between, you know, is light a particle or a wave? And they say, well, it's neither particle or wave, or it's both particle and wave. And so, is there something ultimate or is there nothing ultimate? Is there both ultimacy and not ultimacy? Is there a kind of view that we can hold on to that is neither a view nor not a view, or is both a view and not a view? Is it two sides of the same coin, two sides of the same hand? Depending which way we look at it, we come to a different conclusion.

We don't have to even take what I'm offering, the view of no view, the idea of nothing ultimate. It's not very interesting to make those views and hold on to those. There are ways of just kind of letting that go too and not being so focused on it and not making those ultimate. In early Buddhism, they don't have these schools, they don't articulate the philosophies as much, but in the early tradition, it's just the practice to practice non-clinging, to understand the value of not holding on to anything at all. That the freedom from suffering is freedom from not fixating on anything, including religion, including philosophical views, doctrines, any kind of idea that something is the ultimate thing.

In focusing on the suffering and the end of suffering, it's kind of like that's ultimate for me, or that's the foundational, but even that's not something to hold on to. There's nothing there to hold on to. Freedom from suffering is kind of like the hand has a fist that has finally been opened up. An open hand is just an open hand. The hand itself is not holding on to anything. But if I love that open hand and want to make it into something and grab it, then I've lost the open hand and now I have a fist again. So you don't want to make the end of suffering "the thing" and then hold on to that. There's nothing to hold on to, nothing to hold on to, and how profound that is.

So, suffering and its end, no view, and no ultimacy are part of my Dharma, at least for now. And I say "at least for now" so that that's also not taken as being kind of ultimate truth.

I'll end with a little story, I'm not sure where it comes from, but there's a story of Māra⁵, who is the Buddhist personification of all temptations and hindrances that keeps us in the world of sensual desires and prevents us from becoming awakened and free. So Māra is this supernatural being that goes around and tries to stop people from practicing and getting enlightened and all that. Māra is out wandering around with his attendant, and they come across a meditator who's doing walking meditation. The meditator has some deep realization, deep insight, and exclaims, "How happily I see the truth! I see the truth!" And Māra just continues without being concerned. The attendant says to Māra, "Aren't you concerned? This person's discovered the truth and probably on the brink of awakening or making progress along the way." And Māra says, "No, no, I'm not so concerned. Soon enough, the person will turn it into a belief." So we can see things that are powerfully true, but then we make it into a belief, and then we're back in Māra's hands.

Thank you, and I'll continue with this tomorrow.