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Dharmette: Buddha Before Buddhism (3 of 5) Not Clinging to Sense Desires; Guided Meditation: Not Always So - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on December 04, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Not Always So

So, for this morning's meditation, I'd like to offer a theme, a simple theme, that you can use as you wish. The theme is, "not always so." And to apply it to your experience, whatever is predominant for you. If it's a thought, this thought is not always so. If it's a feeling, this feeling is not always so. If it's a sensation in the body, this sensation is not always so.

"Not always so" is a reflection on how things change, how things are impermanent, transient. To really look closely at your experience and see if you can see for yourself the truth of this. Is it always so? Is what's happening now always the case?

"Not always so" can be a very gentle, simple, and direct way of beginning to see the transient nature of things. And as you see the transient nature of what you experience, perhaps something begins to relax. The grip, the holding, the identification with what's happening can begin to soften, to lessen. The commentary, the story you have about it, may not be so compelling. The fear or the desire, the wanting or the resisting, might lose some of its fuel. Not always so.

And for the last part of the sitting, letting go of the theme, "not always so," and just allowing yourself to be present for what is so, right now. What is present for you now? Without any idea of it being permanent or impermanent. Just now. What is it like to be here now?

Dharmette: Buddha Before Buddhism (3 of 5) Not Clinging to Sense Desires

So, I've been talking about the Buddha before Buddhism, looking at some of the teachings of the Buddha that have a timeless quality, a quality that doesn't require a whole edifice of Buddhist thought and philosophy and ideas to understand. These are things that can be understood directly in our own experience.

Today I want to talk about the theme of not clinging to sense desires. This is a very central teaching of the Buddha. He saw that a great deal of our suffering, our dukkha¹, comes from our relationship to the pleasant experiences we have through our senses. The delight we take in seeing beautiful things, hearing beautiful sounds, smelling wonderful fragrances, tasting delicious flavors, and feeling pleasant sensations in the body.

There's nothing wrong, of course, with enjoying these things. The Buddha was not a life-denying teacher. He was not trying to suggest that we should avoid pleasure. The issue is not the pleasure itself, but the clinging to it. The attachment, the demand that it continues, the fear of it ending. That's where the suffering comes in.

When we cling to sense desires, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. Because everything changes. Anicca², impermanence, is a fundamental law of existence. The beautiful sight will fade. The pleasant sound will end. The delicious taste will disappear. The pleasant feeling will go away. If we are clinging, if we are attached, then we suffer when these things change.

The Buddha's suggestion is to learn to enjoy the pleasures of the senses without clinging. To appreciate them for what they are, fleeting, transient experiences, and to let them go when they pass. To have a sense of ease and freedom in relationship to pleasure, rather than a sense of dependency and craving.

This is not an easy thing to do. Our society, in many ways, is built on the idea of maximizing sense pleasure and trying to make it permanent. We're constantly being told that if we just buy the right product, have the right experience, we will be happy. But the Buddha's teaching points in a different direction. It points to a happiness that is not dependent on external conditions, a happiness that comes from within, from a mind that is free from clinging.

One way to practice this is to pay close attention to our experience of pleasure. When you're having a pleasant experience, see if you can notice the subtle sense of wanting to hold onto it, the fear of it ending. And see if you can just relax around that, to just allow the experience to be what it is, without adding the burden of clinging.

This is a practice of letting go. A practice of finding a deeper kind of happiness, a more reliable kind of well-being, that doesn't depend on the fleeting pleasures of the world. It is the freedom that the Buddha was pointing to, a freedom that is available to all of us, here and now.