This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Tranquility; Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (16) The Calm of Non-Clinging. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Tranquility; Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (16) The Calm of Non-Clinging - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 25, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Tranquility

Hello everyone, and warm greetings on this Monday morning.

Today the guided meditation will be around tranquility and calm. The idea being that when we let go, when we relax, when we stop our clinging, releasing our attachments, one of the signs of that—one of the consequences of that—is some degree of tranquility. Some degree of calm, or peace, or ease, or lightness—a lightening up.

It is one thing to let go; it is another thing to appreciate the consequences of letting go. It is one thing to have compulsion, addiction, be caught up in something. It is something else to become aware that beyond the edges of the attachment, there is some modicum of tranquility, of peace, serenity, ease, calm. I use all these different words because different people resonate with different words.

So in this meditation, I'll guide you a bit to appreciate the calm that's there, or the peace, or the degree of tranquility which is there when we're not attached, not clinging to something. Sometimes that calm is the calm of recognizing an absence. In the absence of agitation, in the absence of clinging, right there in that sense of absence, there's a hint of serenity, of peace.

So, assuming a meditation posture and gently closing your eyes. Gently, maybe slowly, as if you have all the time in the world, take a comfortably deeper breath than usual and let go. Release. Exhale longer than usual, but only to the degree which it's comfortable to do so. Comfortably slow inhale and slow exhale. Comfortably longer than usual. On the exhale, relax your body, especially around the shoulders. And let your breathing return to normal.

With normal breathing, on the exhale, soften in the face. Around the eyes, cheeks, around the forehead. As you exhale, relaxing around the shoulders or softening around whatever tension might be there. On the exhale, softening the belly.

There can coexist tension and relaxation in different parts of the body. There can coexist agitation and calm in different parts of the body. Find in your body the places of calm, places of relatively more relaxed, easeful sensation.

If there is tension in the thinking mind, as you exhale, relax the thinking mind. Maybe with an image of a lake. The surface of the lake, that when the wind dies, the waves disappear, and the surface becomes still and quiet and wide, broad. So relax the thinking mind, the waves of thinking slow down.

Gently, lightly stay in touch with your breathing. With a very light touch. Whatever way you're breathing, let it be that way without any judgments of it, whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable. Let it be the way it is. Almost as if awareness through the body is lightly touching, in touch with the oscillation of breathing in and breathing out.

Is there some place in your body and mind with a degree of calm, peace, or maybe ease? There might be other places where there might be agitation, tension, a heaviness. It's okay that that's there, but for now, be on the edges of it. Elsewhere, find the places where there is calm and peace.

Breathe with that calm. Gently letting the breath accompany the calm.

If you find yourself thinking a lot, caught up in your thoughts or concerns, or caught up in some feeling of resistance or tension or holding to how you're feeling: let go. Relax. Soften up a bit. And notice, in the relaxing, letting go, is there some tranquility, some calm that you can appreciate?

Whatever degree of calm there is, let that calm be a companion to your breathing, mindfulness of breathing.

Releasing any hold there is on your thinking, sometimes called the "fist in the mind." Open the hand of the mind. Release the clinging. Appreciate the tranquility or calm, lightness or ease that might come with letting go.

Agitation and peace can coexist within us. If we identify or are oriented towards the agitation, the clinging, it can seem like it's the whole world. If we identify with the peace, the tranquility, if we're oriented towards that, they can make space for this agitation to settle more. Can make room for release of our attachment.

Any degree of tranquility you might feel, calm as you exhale, make a small adjustment to your exhale that is some equivalent for you of going "ahhh." Savoring, enjoying the calm that's here.

As we come to the end of this sitting, imagine being with whatever calm you have right now. Whatever way you might be settled. In the midst of some of the challenges you expect today, however small, however big, imagining that you don't have to respond or react right away. But you're allowed to just be there in the middle of it, calmly, in the way you are now. Present, attentive.

For you to remain calm in these situations, what did you let go of? What was not present that is usually present for you?

In this act of imagination, for a few more breaths, appreciating the absence of that reactivity or attachment. You're allowed to be here, breathing, simple, relaxed.

Then, from whatever calm place you have now, extending your goodwill out into the world. Considering the people you'll meet today and others beyond them. May it be your wish that they be well, that they be happy and safe. And may it be that you contribute to that in how you are with them.

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

Thank you.

Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (16) The Calm of Non-Clinging

So, hello on this Monday morning. As we begin a new theme for this week—a theme which is a continuation of this series I've been giving on Introduction to Mindfulness—this is part two of that series.

Last week I talked about mindfulness of clinging. One of the Buddha's common teachings about clinging is the way that clinging gathers together, collects, and accumulates over time, so that there are bundles of clinging¹. The opposite of that is non-clinging, and the absence of bundles, the absence of accumulated clinging.

So what we want to start noticing in mindfulness is not just what is present, but there is a time in mindfulness we want to notice what is absent. In any given moment, there is an infinite number of things which are absent to our awareness. You can be quite busy if you try to take into account all of it. But in the teachings, in this practice, we want to notice the salient absences that are really significant in the moment in relationship to clinging: the absence of clinging.

We want to appreciate that absence to make room for more of it. The recognition of the value and the goodness and the healthiness of non-clinging supports the heart, the mind, the body, the whole system. We have to start becoming more oriented to the world of non-clinging.

Growing up, many people are not taught to pay attention to the qualities or characteristics of a non-clinging heart, a non-clinging mind. Somehow or other, we get the message to cling more, want more, be attached, have more, do more. Or, because we're afraid, we get the message that we have to kind of clamp down, hold back, shrink, resist—which is a form of clinging as well. But there's something phenomenal that could happen when we start orienting ourselves to non-clinging. That's the theme for this week.

One of the ways that this works is we begin recognizing the symptoms of non-clinging—the qualities, the characteristics of what it's like when we're not clinging as much—rather than setting up a really hard line between clinging and not clinging, either/or. I think it's more realistic to start recognizing that there's a range. Maybe it's like a seesaw where sometimes there's more clinging, sometimes less clinging, but they can kind of coexist. So we might have some minor clinging, but mostly we're peaceful, at ease. There might be some major clinging, and we don't really recognize that part of us is calm and relaxed. So these things can coexist, and we want to start recognizing that there is non-clinging here.

One exercise that can be done is to recognize something obvious that you're currently not clinging to. Maybe it doesn't have to be something that you have previously clung to—it could be—but it could be some ordinary object that's around you. It might be that you have no clinging to the light switch on the wall. It never occurred to you to cling to that or be attached to it. You can feel how you can take in, be aware of the light switch on the wall, and there's an absence of 'for' or 'against.' An absence of trying to hold on to it. Absence of associating with, building up a sense of self around the light switch.

Now, if it's a light switch in your house, maybe you're not completely innocent about it. But there might be something else you can think about that has that quality. Something ordinary around that you never would have occurred to think about clinging to it. Somehow getting a sense of 'there is an absence there.' Absence of tension, absence of resistance, absence of identification perhaps.

In that absence, there might be some calm, some hints of calm or peace or tranquility. The Buddha said that tranquility is the food for tranquility². If you notice or are aware of the ways in which you're calm, that cultivates that. It just develops more calm. So whether it's tranquility or calm or peace or ease—whatever word you like—one of the things we want to notice is the tranquility of non-clinging. That's one way of recognizing it and appreciating it.

I've been in situations where I let go of something, but my mind was so oriented to grasping that letting go of one thing just meant that my hands were ready—my hand in my mind was ready—to just grab the next thing. The metaphor that the Buddha gave for this clinging mind is a monkey that's swinging from branch to branch³. As soon as it lets go of one branch—even before it lets go of it—it's already reaching for the next branch. So this continual grabbing, grabbing, grabbing as it swings along.

In this way, the movement of grasping can be so great. I remember once, when my son was quite small, going to the supermarket with him. He was small enough that I kind of held him in my arms as we were going around shopping for things. He was starting to want things in the supermarket. I remember once he wanted something really desperately, but he didn't know what it was because he just took his arm behind him—I was holding him—to grab at what was behind him. It didn't matter what it was, he just wanted it. This movement of grasping.

So, for non-clinging, notice the degree of non-clinging that is present for you. When you have some degree of tranquility, some degree of calm, look for the calm of the day. Look for how you can be tranquil. Look how you can be calm.

It is certainly possible to overemphasize calm and tranquility. It's possible to get attached to it. It's kind of a paradox, that people get calm and then they hold on to it, they cling to it, and then they get tense holding on to it. There can be a very strong preference for calm that would qualify as a kind of attachment. There can be a lot of judgments about not being calm, which is a kind of attachment as well.

The idea is to hold this very lightly. Hold your calm lightly, hold your tension lightly, and begin appreciating the degrees by which we're no longer grasping, clenching, no longer compulsive, no longer being driven by whatever it is that is driving our emotions, our thoughts, the activation of our body.

Appreciate calm. This is a very important teaching for people who develop this practice and mature it. As they begin to get a greater and greater feeling for, or experience of, letting go of non-clinging, it is to start appreciating what that feels like. The field of non-clinging. The body, the mind, the heart that doesn't cling. It's a very important thing to feel and feel into that, and to take in the goodness of it, the wholesomeness of non-clinging.

For today, the suggestion is to notice the calm or the tranquility that comes with non-clinging.

So may you on this day make your calmness or tranquility or ease or peace, lightness—whatever quality speaks to you the most—let it be a theme that runs through your day. Appreciate when it's there. Take time to appreciate that. Find whether it's there even without having noticed it because you're so busy doing things. Make more room for tranquility. And notice if tranquility is a food for tranquility—that tranquility supports more tranquility. But more importantly, does tranquility support non-attachment, non-clinging, non-grasping, non-compulsion?

So I hope you enjoy a day of tranquility, at least the exploration of it. And if you find no tranquility at all, I hope you enjoy how that highlights what is happening for you, and that you can be mindful of that.

Thank you.