Guided Meditation: Resting in the Knowing; Dharmette: Satipaṭṭhāna (66) Knowing the Four Noble Truths

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Resting in the Knowing; Satipatthana (66) Knowing the Four Noble Truths. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on April 29, 2022. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Resting in the Knowing

Good morning everyone. Here we are in the last day of discussing the Four Noble Truths^[1]. In terms of how it relates to meditation, it's central to the whole process in Buddhism. But what I'd like to emphasize for this meditation is a word in the description of the Four Noble Truths that's often overlooked, and that is the word understanding.

To understand the noble truth of suffering. To understand the noble truth of the arising of suffering. To understand the noble truth of the cessation of suffering. And to understand the noble truth of the practice leading to the cessation of suffering.

So you see, the word "understanding" keeps getting repeated. We tend to look at the rest of the sentences. "To understand" means we have to understand something; we have to understand what the meaning of the statements are. But half of what we're doing is also beginning to appreciate more and more, value, and recognize the understanding, the awareness, the knowing that goes on.

And it's maybe the secret that, rather than solving the Four Noble Truths and seeing them, understanding them, a big part of what we're doing is heightening our recognition, our appreciation of the mind's ability to be attentive. And that takes many forms. One of them is to understand, to know, to be conscious of.

As this sense of attentiveness, awareness, knowing, clear comprehension, and mindfulness becomes stronger, it becomes a refuge. It becomes a place to abide in. And it becomes a place where we feel safe, present, as we're able to look out into the world or look into our own suffering in an effective way. We're not blinded by or absorbed by what suffering is, but we appreciate the ability to step back and just hold it in awareness.

So for this meditation, maybe there's some way that you can switch the paradigm of how minds often operate, where they're concerned about something. When we do mindfulness, we're trying to be mindful of something, and that's all fine. But there's a whole other half of what's happening, and that is the awareness itself. The knowing, the attentiveness, the clear comprehension. I use a lot of words because different people resonate with different words, or their minds work differently, and so their attentiveness is different, using different capacities.

A felt sense, to feel what's going on, is also another way, if we don't get caught up in how we feel but are able to rest and be receptive in that feeling sense that we have. So let's see how that goes today.

Beginning the meditation. Lowering your gaze if your eyes are open, and looking down. Not looking at anything in particular, but the eyes see. There is seeing. That seeing which makes no effort to see. Maybe things are not in focus, but still, the eyes are taking in light. The receptivity of the eyes. And then gently closing your eyes.

And there's the receptivity of hearing, where maybe it doesn't matter so much what you hear. But if you can hear something, appreciate the hearing. The hearing-ness of hearing. The receptivity of the ears.

And then there are the sensations of your body. Sensing the body, but not searching for sensations. The way the body is receptive to sensations, and sensations appear, are present. Appreciating the receptivity of our sensing the body.

If you feel any holding or tension in the body, maybe on the exhale, relax the holding. Soften.

Letting yourself take a few moments to breathe consciously, to breathe attentively. Where the attentiveness to breathing is appreciated as something important. Just attentiveness itself. The fact that we're conscious is kind of a miracle. And to be conscious is always something that happens in the present moment. To appreciate being conscious is to appreciate the present.

A consciousness which is not searching or trying to do something. That is more receptive.

As you exhale, perhaps you can relax any tension or pressure around or within your field of attentiveness. Around consciousness. Being conscious.

Perhaps allowing the sensations or the experience of breathing to be like a gentle wind flowing across the field of consciousness. Gentle waves washing up across the beach, coming and going on the beach. The beach being consciousness. Being conscious.

When a new sensation arises—a sound, a feeling in your body, a thought, the beginning of a new in-breath or the beginning of a new out-breath—when things arise in awareness, appreciate how that arising can remind you of being aware itself. Of knowing itself. Things are known, sensed, felt, experienced.

The arising of something new is an occasion to appreciate that we're conscious.

Perhaps you can notice being conscious, being aware. That you can notice now what arises effortlessly in awareness. Maybe it's something unexpected. What arises effortlessly and is known effortlessly, it can be anything at all.

A new sound, a new sensation, a repeated sound, a repeated sensation. Whatever it is, maybe initially, before we get involved in it, there's an effortless knowing, a recognition. Appreciate that part of the mind that is attentive effortlessly.

The part of the mind that is not choosing what to attend to, not directing the mind. The part of the mind that just is, and experiences arise, are known, sensed, felt.

And now, with this kind of knowing, this kind of attentiveness that has this effortless quality—receptive, open—become aware of something that's uncomfortable here and now. In your body, some emotions, some feeling, some thoughts you're having. Anything that's uncomfortable or stressful. And see if you can know it with that kind of awareness. The receptive, open, effortless awareness where discomfort is just known, but it's not a problem for this effortless mind, this effortless consciousness.

The mind being conscious of it is more appreciated, more valued than the discomfort.

And then bring to mind some suffering you have in your life. Maybe remember it, think about it. But rather than prioritizing the thinking about it, prioritize the awareness that knows it quietly, peacefully. Prioritize the capacity to be conscious as you are reminded of your suffering.

And now, gently, softly, take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Comfortably longer. And relax. Let go as you exhale. Settle deeply, more deeply, into this body. Relax. Settle in.

As we come to the end of this sitting, maybe relaxing into a simple capacity for being aware or conscious. The place where things are just known receptively or effortlessly.

And from this place of receptivity, maybe clarity, maybe a kind of stillness, gaze upon the world kindly. Gaze upon yourself kindly.

With compassion for the suffering of the world. With compassion for your own suffering. And perhaps from some place deep within, some place that feels maybe like a place of home, or a place of integrity, it can express the kindness, the compassion, with the aspiration, the generosity of wishing yourself well. Wishing yourself happiness, safety, peace, and freedom.

And then gazing out across the world. A world where there's an abundance of suffering. And not getting caught in that suffering, but appreciating being conscious of it. That place of conscious stillness or openness is a powerful channel for your compassion for the world. Where your aspiration, your generosity for the world might be taken in, given with the words:

May others be happy. May others be safe. May others be peaceful. May others be free.

Dharmette: Satipaṭṭhāna (66) Knowing the Four Noble Truths

I wanted to read a wonderful passage from the teachings of the Buddha. The Buddha says, "It is enough. It's enough to do this. This is a good enough, wonderful life. This is enough, if you just do this with your life." Something like that. So rather than thinking this is a high standard—maybe it is—but this is enough. This is a wonderful way. This would be enough if you just did this, it would be enough.

Practicing for your own welfare is enough. Practicing for the welfare of others is enough. Practicing for the welfare of both the self and others is enough.

There's a little bit more than that; it was a little bit of a paraphrase of the text. But here we are, practicing hopefully for our welfare and the welfare of others. This week, we looked at the Four Noble Truths, and the wording of the Four Noble Truths is very simple, but very evocative.

One way it's evocative is that there are no pronouns in it. It says, "One understands the noble truth of suffering. One understands the noble truth of the arising of suffering. One understands the noble truth of the cessation of suffering. And one understands the noble truth of the practice leading to the cessation of suffering."

There are no pronouns there. It's not emphasizing one's own suffering or the suffering of others. I like to interpret this to mean that when we practice, we are available to recognize suffering wherever it is—in ourselves, in the world around us. And that it can be equally our care to care for the suffering of others as it is to care for ourselves. Each of them is enough, this little sutta^[2] says. It's somewhere else, in the Samyutta^[3], book 12, verse 22.

So each is enough. Whenever we're paying attention to the suffering of others, if that's what's salient, that's what's prominent, that's enough. That's good. Paying attention to our own suffering, that's good as well. Doing both, here it says, is enough. But I think doing both is really the best, because if we only pay attention to the suffering of others but not our own, we can easily say and act in ways that cause more harm for ourselves and for others.

If we only pay attention to our own suffering, then it's too easy for that to reinforce self-involvement, self-preoccupation, selfishness of a certain kind. And it's too easy to not pay enough attention to the suffering of others, to similarly cause harm because we don't understand people. We don't know the impact we're having or what is supportive for people. But to be able to do both is a phenomenal thing.

One of the phenomenal aspects of keeping the Four Noble Truths at the center of Buddhist practice is that it's a form of self-protection and a protection for others. We notice when we start becoming uncomfortable, tense, stressed, or distressed. We stop and pay attention to that. This is worth understanding. This is worth looking at. And that's a very different approach than just barreling ahead with the suffering, being preoccupied with it in a way that reinforces it.

But with this special awareness we're developing in mindfulness, we have the ability to, in a metaphorical way, step back and know it. Be conscious of it. Being knowing and conscious of it is in some ways more important than the content of what's happening. The knowing of it is where some freedom is found.

And the knowing of it gives us information about how to maybe make a course correction. How do you know? If you notice your shoulders are tense, maybe it's simple to relax the shoulders. If we notice we're attached to some outcome, maybe that's not so easy to let go of. Or we're holding on to some pain and being attached to suffering, that's not so easy to let go of.

But slowly we begin to learn to have this different relationship to suffering, where it isn't driving the show. It's not confusing us or preoccupying us in some deep way. We're learning this ability to step back and be conscious, so that in that consciousness there's some ease, some freedom, and there's the information we need to maybe do course corrections.

So that's how it's protective. That works, for example, in meditation practice. At some point, we become aware that we're straining. Maybe we're trying too hard, or we have an expectation that things should be different. We have this idea that, "I'm not doing it well." With those kinds of thoughts and that kind of strain, you can probably feel some discomfort around having them—some dukkha^[4], some strain or stress.

And if you notice it, then you're on the road to becoming free of it, especially if you've developed this capacity to be consciously aware in this very clear way that we're talking about today. Then we can make a course correction. We can change what we're doing as well. So we're not so much focused on the content of what we know, and we're not necessarily focused on the process of what's happening, but we're prioritizing being conscious of it.

Some people might feel that that's not enough. That it's dangerous, or we're not going to take care of ourselves properly. But what happens is, as we can be relaxed and open and conscious in this kind of effortless way, we have access to deeper places of wisdom within, deeper knowing. We have time for some deeper process to unfold. We can reference what we say and what we do against or with this freedom, this spaciousness, or this ease of this kind of knowing.

So the Four Noble Truths. Instead of trying to understand what they mean—which is appropriate, I hope you understood more this week what they mean—also remember how important it is to understand, to know. To know each one. And the knowing grows. The capacity to know present moment awareness, present moment conscious awareness, can grow so it becomes a place of abiding, of resting. A place of freedom.

Where we discover that, in a deep way, what we're looking for in practice—the freedom, the peace, the depth of what we're looking for—is maybe not found in what we're trying to understand, but it's found in our capacity to understand. It's not found in what we're trying to know, but it's found in the knowing itself. And that's a paradigm shift.

May you appreciate your knowing, your ability to be conscious, to be attentive, to be aware. May you over this weekend try to go through the day periodically tapping into or exploring what I talked about today. About this value of understanding, knowing, being conscious in this kind of effortless way where we receive. And see what you'll learn. See how difficult it is when it's easy, and what benefits come from it, even if you just have little hints of it from here and there.

And then Monday we'll start the last week on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness^[5]. Now that we've gone through all the exercises, there's a foundation for bringing it to a close. So thank you very much, and I look forward to Monday.