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Guided Meditation: Simplicity Beyond Beliefs; Dharmette: Core Teachings Pt 2 (2 of 5) Foundational Peace Free of Beliefs - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on June 18, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Hello everyone, and I appreciate all the greetings on the chat, especially when there's a new name that I haven't seen for a long time. So thank you for making yourself known this way. My fond feelings for so many of you that I know, and those of you I don't know, I'm delighted to know you this way.

Guided Meditation: Simplicity Beyond Beliefs

One of the principles of mindfulness meditation is to keep things simple, perhaps radically simple. I'll say something a little bit complicated to get to the simplicity, and that is, I propose that we assume that anytime we're thinking about something that's not in the present moment, here and now—something in the future, the past, something someplace else—that in the background of that is a belief. A belief that it's valuable to do so, a belief of something we have to accomplish or get or fix or remember or hold on to or get rid of. A belief in a certain understanding of what it means to be a human being in relationship with other people, and a belief in what is right and wrong, and a belief in how we've been harmed or benefited. Many of these beliefs we don't think of as beliefs; we're just doing the matter-of-fact things with our thinking.

When we meditate, in a sense, we really don't need to believe in anything, or very, very little that's not here and now. So the radical simplicity is to say, if you're thinking about the future, thinking about the past, thinking about fantasy, thinking about something which is not here, to in a loving way, a delightful way, say, "No thank you, not now. Not now."

Just know that you're not rejecting thinking about these things, just not now. "No, thank you." In doing so, you're also letting go of the beliefs that you're supposed to think, or it's useful to think, or there's value in thinking about these things. Of course, there's a time and place for that, but not now. "No, no thank you." And to say that with enough love or enough kindness or enough simplicity that it becomes a gentle returning to here and now. Just now, just here, just with the breathing. There's so little we need to believe in if we enter into the world of our present moment experience.

I often emphasize breathing. For some people, breathing isn't so useful as a focus of meditation, so then some people would just use the body as a whole, the whole experience and sensations of the body. Some people will use sounds as their home base, their anchor, and just stay in the present with the flow of sounds. It keeps us grounded in the present. Then we might know other things as we go along, but anything that takes us away: "Not now. No, thank you." Where the "no, thank you" and the "not now" is a warmhearted welcome back here, in this experience, here and now.

So, gently assuming a meditation posture and closing your eyes. Feeling your body here in space, supported from falling with the pull of gravity by whatever surface that's holding you up—a chair, a cushion, a bed, a floor. Feel the weight of your body against this surface as a kind of definitiveness. This is the place where "here" is.

Then, feeling the vibrating and pulsing or sensing experience of a body. This is the experience of now. In this wide experience of here and now, is there a home base, a place where it's easy for your attention to rest or stay focused?

If you find yourself thinking about other things and other places, other times, remind yourself, "Not now," with a "No, thank you." Welcome yourself back into your body, into your present moment experience. If you're thinking a lot about here and now, chances are you're believing in something that maybe you don't have to believe in so much actively. Even that, you might say, "No, thank you." Keep returning to a radical simplicity of your experience, here and now.

To remain very simple, here and now, stay close to your body's ability to be sensing. Sensing the body, sounds, smells, tastes, sights. Stay close to the body's ability to sense, rather than staying close to your thinking, rather than being immersed in beliefs of what you should be thinking about.

As we come to the end of this sitting, take a few moments to feel your way or allow yourself to be as simple as you can. Almost staying close to the simple way that you feel yourself alive right now, without the filter of beliefs, interpretations, stories, expectations, or projections. Simply being here with the body, with the breathing, with the flow of sensations. A radical simplicity that, for right now, for the next few minutes, all needs are put aside. Any need that can't be satisfied in meditation, just be here and now.

In this simplicity of being, turn your gaze now outward into the world. What is it like to meet, encounter, think about others from a perspective of this simplicity of being? Meeting others without need for anything, meeting others without judging anything, self or other. Meeting others and allowing them to be who they are in the simplicity of our attention.

In this simplicity of being, what form of connection or rapport do you tend to have with others? Simplicity of being where you're safe, nothing is threatening. What attitude or feelings do you have of a simple human connectivity to others? Without anyone else knowing, from within, see if you can generate basic human goodwill, wishing others well at the level of this radical simplicity of being. Simple connection.

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

And may it be that in each of our simplicity of being, simplicity of attention here and now, may it be that we provide others with safety, with peace, with freedom from any projections and demands that we have. And maybe in so doing, support others in their happiness.

May all beings be happy. Thank you.

Dharmette: Core Teachings Pt 2 (2 of 5) Foundational Peace Free of Beliefs

Welcome to this second talk, part two of core teachings. To discuss further the second core teaching, that of having no views, and what this means—maybe it's a strange expression, so it needs some explanation. It means finding a way of living, being alive, even if it's just for a little while in meditation or a little while walking in nature, or a little while just in the evening and maybe looking out the window at the stars or something, of not depending on any belief. Not depending on any religious belief or political beliefs, not depending on any point of view.

Certainly, there are beliefs, certainly there are points of view which are pragmatically useful. I say that carefully so we don't automatically think beliefs and points of view are true in some absolute philosophical or universal way, but rather they might be functionally true, practically true in certain circumstances but not in others. Religious people often hold on to views, very strong beliefs about what is ultimate and what is true, what is right and what is wrong. It's very hard to let go of that, to believe that anything else is valuable. But in the simplicity of meditation, we see clearly that certainly holding on to any belief system, or actually operating actively with any belief system, interferes with our capacity for peace. It interferes with our capacity to tap into a deep, natural sense of well-being, happiness, joy, peace that is possible to experience completely free of anything that we are believing.

Some people then feel it's a betrayal of our beliefs, a betrayal of our responsibility as human beings to let go of these fundamental religious beliefs that maybe we've grown up with and that are the very way in which we see the world or orient ourselves. But as we get quieter in meditation, more concentrated in meditation, you can see how those things, if they're operating actively, hinder us. They get in the way. There is a phenomenal sense of liberation and freedom that can happen when we're no longer navigating the world or ourselves through any belief system whatsoever.

Does that give us the opportunity to then live in the world without any operating principles, without any functional, pragmatic beliefs? Probably not. I think that we have to understand what is practically useful in our society, in the world of other people. Different cultures have different practical kind of orientations, points of view that they're operating from, and some of them are pretty deeply ingrained, even in the language which people speak. It's not like some of these core, deep worldviews—views about self and others—are right and wrong. They are ways in which we manage to navigate and negotiate the world together with other people, and they have a pragmatic usefulness. But to see them as such, to see them as contingent, to see them as being relative or to see them as being provisional, means that we don't add an extra layer of holding on or insisting or forcing ourselves.

Too often in this world, we see competing beliefs and people who want to impose their beliefs on others. Too often, we see people struggling with beliefs that are very negative to themselves and make their life much more difficult than it needs to be. Beliefs that justify violence and greed, beliefs that seemingly justify negative self-views.

To discover it's possible to breathe and live and see and smell and touch with a radical simplicity, free of all views, belief systems, and clinging to them, gives us a taste of freedom. It also gives us a vantage point to see the operation of these views and beliefs that we have. To see them arise, see them occur. By kind of clearing the canvas, in a sense, we see the paint strokes as they're made. Then we have much more choice. We have much more ability to see it as being a contingent, provisional kind of point of view. We can look and see how this is useful, when is it useful, and when is it not useful. How do I hold on to it?

We have much more wisdom about the beliefs we have. So the path of Insight Meditation is to discover this radical place where we're not dependent on any worldview at all, any belief system at all. Even Buddhism, even beliefs in Buddhism, have to be let go. Even beliefs that it's possible to get enlightened have to be let go. Even the beliefs that there's a path to practice—everything falls away. It's replaced by something, something very fundamental that is not—that's more having to do with maybe instinct or some deeper wellspring inside of us, a source inside of understanding that is not based on or centered on or attached to all the constructed beliefs that we have, all the ways that we have constructed worldviews that have an origin.

Historians of philosophy and sociology and anthropology can show how fundamental worldviews that people have have a history, that they come from certain philosophers, thinkers, cultures in a particular way down through the times. For example, in the modern West, modern America, modern California maybe more than some places, the worldview that came out of Freud and Jung over the last 100-120 years or so have radically shaped parts of modern culture, but without us knowing that that's the origin of it. We just take it for granted that certain things are just the way they are, it's the way nature made us. By getting really quiet and peaceful, we can begin questioning or seeing these operating principles that are not necessarily required to be happy and free and to be functioning in the world in an effective and supportive way towards everyone.

One of those operating principles that is left is something as simple as, if you get a thorn in your foot, you sit down and pull out the thorn rather than keep walking and having it dig deeper and deeper in. Is there a belief system that you take out the thorn? You can say you believe it's useful to take it out, but it's such a deep kind of sense of obviousness that you want to stop harming yourself, and it's a simple thing to do. It doesn't really require believing anything because it operates on a much more basic level than having to logically think, "What should I do here? What are my beliefs? I'm going to go look at the text, the manual for being human, what do you do when you have a thorn?" "I don't know, I don't know what to believe in here."

As we kind of drop into this radical simplicity of being, there's a different kind of way of responding to the world that's closer to that of pulling out a thorn. The simplest way that I have of describing this is a radical or a thoroughgoing dedication to non-harming. Not as a philosophy, not as a logic that's been worked out, but rather as a clear sensitivity that if we harm others intentionally, we are harming ourselves. We are putting a thorn in our hearts, and of course we don't want that thorn there, so we'll pull it out. That means that we pull out the intention to consciously, intentionally cause any harm to any other people. That is a phenomenal foundation for a healthy life and a healthy society. Maybe it doesn't provide everything we need to do and everything we need to organize and every perspective we should have about what goes on in our society, but what a phenomenal foundation. A foundation of freedom and non-harming.

It's almost as if non-harming is a fundamental belief, but it's not quite a belief. It's more almost biological in nature rather than philosophical in nature. So this movement towards having no views—no religious views, no views of what's ultimate, no religious views that we hold on to, insist on, "this is the truth"—this is one of the core, could I say, beliefs? Maybe so. Core beliefs that I have, core teachings that I have, core pragmatic, useful orientations that point to something that is beyond beliefs, beyond anything that depends on views. To know that place, to know that possibility, then lets us return into the world of views, worldviews, orientations, perspectives that we have on life and hold them lightly. Hold them only in the sense that, "Is this useful, and how is this useful?" Let's use them for the benefit of everyone, including self. Let's use them for a more ultimate purpose: the purpose of ending all harm in this world that we live in.

Thank you very much. May you go forth today with that kind of simplicity of being that is devoted to non-harming. Thank you.