Question and Answer

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video 35 minute Silent Meditation; Questions and Answers with Gil Fronsdal. 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 September 03, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Question and Answer

Gil Fronsdal: So I came down here today much more interested in hearing from you than hearing from myself. What I thought would be nice is to hear if you have any questions or concerns that are up for you, and that we want to look at through a Buddhist practice lens. If there are no questions at all, that's going to be risky for you, because then I'm going to ask you a question. So you'll protect yourself if you ask questions.

If you could use your mic, it's nice. If you ask a question, please say your name first, just so we get to know each other a little more. Yes, I wouldn't be surprised, Alex, you're up in the front here. No? I was just saying, you often have questions, but we won't put you on the spot.

Elaine McCreight: I have a practical question. My name is Elaine McCreight. Do you have any insider tips on how one gets to attend a residential retreat at IRC^[1]? Any insight about how you get to attend the retreats?

Gil Fronsdal: Well, I can tell you the secret of how to manage to attend. We have a retreat center in Santa Cruz that holds about forty retreatants, and one of the heartbreaking things for me is how many people end up on the waiting list for those retreats and don't get in. I really feel bad about it, because I don't take lightly people's intention to come on retreat. There are a lot of people—maybe it's even their first interest in being on retreat—who can't come because of such a long waiting list, and then they lose interest or get discouraged and don't apply again.

But it's the nature of it. Before the pandemic, we had some retreats where so many people applied that we could have put on six retreats. We had around 260 people apply. Now it's dropped considerably since the pandemic; there's only about 180 or something. We try to address this in various ways. One is the wish to have a second retreat center so we can accommodate people more. The other is the secret to getting in: it's a lottery.

If you don't get in the first time you apply in the lottery, then the next time you apply, the computer remembers you, and you have two tickets. The next time you apply, if you didn't get in, you have three tickets. And the next time you don't get in, you have four tickets. The computer doesn't give you five or more tickets. However, it pops up on the roster that this person has four tickets, or sometimes it says "four plus." If we see four plus, then we see what we can do to kind of work the system for you to bypass the lottery. So just keep applying.

But you can't game the system. You can't apply to every retreat just to get a lot of tickets, because if you get accepted to a retreat that you can't do, you start over again at zero tickets. So only apply for retreats that you can do, and eventually, you'll get accepted. I'm very apologetic that it's that difficult and that you have to try so many times, but if you persist, it will work. It's difficult for some people. Their lives change, their work changes, and to be able to be free and plan ahead is hard. I feel very apologetic. Thank you.

Elaine McCreight: May I add a related question? I have done, and really feel grateful for, the online retreats. I'm sure it varies enormously, but what is your sense of the depth of both the residential and the online retreats?

Gil Fronsdal: Oh, I love online retreats. This is one of the great gifts of the pandemic, when we couldn't do residential retreats and we offered a lot of online retreats here. Before the pandemic, if you had said, "You're going to be on YouTube or doing these online retreats," I wouldn't have believed it. I'm a little bit of a Luddite with computers. Now I have an iPhone, and I used to hide it from people if I brought it into the Dharma Hall, hiding it behind the bell. But things have changed; I think last time I was here I even pulled it out to read a quote.

One of the things that happened in the pandemic is that I learned how profound these online retreats are, and I think they're really significant. What I learned from doing many of them is that they are kind of the missing link in our practice world. Some people go on retreat and have a significant level of experience, but they don't really learn how to apply or integrate that into their lives. It becomes a split between retreat practice, where they have a certain depth, and everyday life, where they go home and it's business as usual.

But when people did online retreats, most practiced from home, sometimes even with family members or housemates. Learning how to harmonize with home life—learning what to do when there's a plumbing leak and you have to call the plumber during the retreat—how do you do that? How do you take the trash out so it's part of the retreat? It was fascinating at the beginning of the online retreats to see all these things that took people out of the practice, in a sense. For example, a family member somewhere else was having a crisis and had to go to the hospital, or family members in other countries were having challenges, and they had to address it in ways they probably wouldn't have done if they were in person at the retreat center.

I delighted in it and felt, "Oh, the retreat just got bigger." I told people, "You're not leaving the retreat; you're taking the retreat with you, and you're expanding what we understand retreat practice to be." Now you're taking care of someone in India, or taking care of someone in the hospital, or your neighbor, or the plumber who comes. You're practicing with that. That's the missing link. People who practice at home get a sense of what it's like to engage in serious presence, mindfulness, care, compassion, and love with life at home. They harmonize their practice with life in a way they didn't really figure out how to do by going away on retreat and then coming back. So I strongly encourage home retreats.

The other thing I was surprised by is that there were some people whose very first retreat was online. I thought, "Well, how's that going to work?" They're at home, there isn't the example of other practitioners on a retreat, and I didn't know if they would have the discipline. It was phenomenal the discipline people had, and how much they gave themselves to it wholeheartedly. I was so inspired by people's intentionality and dedication, and how transformed they were. So that's the other secret: if you don't get into IRC retreats, don't worry, just do the online retreat. Those are much easier to get into.

Questioner: To bounce off of that question, I certainly concur that the online retreats were tremendous, but you are one of the few people who offers them. Some of the other retreats we don't have online, and I know you have to have practice leader discussions and things like that. Is it possible to give this talk to some of the other teachers, to let them know how important and beneficial the online retreats are?

Gil Fronsdal: Right now, we don't really offer retreats that are only online. What we're offering now are hybrid retreats. What that means is there's an in-person retreat, and at the same time it's being broadcast for the people who are on the online version of it. The teachers that are teaching in person are giving the teachings for everyone, online and in person. But for the individual or group practice discussions, it's a separate teacher who's not there in person who offers those for the online people.

There are two issues we have with offering more. One is that we have to have more service leaders. Everything is run by volunteers, and we're actually stretched to the limit with available volunteer efforts. We have fantastic volunteers—service managers, tech people, cooks, and managers at the retreat center. It's amazing what they do and the goodwill they carry in their volunteer work. But we have a limited number of people, so we can't offer all the retreats we want.

The other thing—and this is difficult and somewhat awkward or uncomfortable for me to say—is that people want to sign up for online retreats that I'm doing, not so much for other teachers. We have great teachers, but if we don't have enough people signing up, then it just doesn't quite work, or the service leaders are not as interested in volunteering for the other teachers. That's kind of sad, but very human, I guess. If both those issues can be addressed, then we'll try to offer more.

Another secret to getting into retreats at IRC is if you can be available at the very last minute, like a few days before the retreat begins. By that time, very few people can be available at short notice, so we go through the waiting list very fast. You could be 120th on the waiting list and sometimes get in. It is awkward to keep your calendar clear and then not get in, but there is no guarantee.

Conrad: Good morning everyone. My name is Conrad. I don't know if I have a question; I'm going to explore something out loud with everyone. What's been on my mind and heart is loneliness. I just graduated from the IMC's chaplaincy program, and I've been working across the street in assisted care living with a group of people, and there is a deep need for connection. I had a friend commit suicide last week, and I think what's on my heart is engaged Buddhism.

There's this tendency for us to want to chase enlightenment or awakened states, and I think this is good, but I want to make a pitch and see if there's anyone who's actually interested in a volunteer network. We can go and just read to the elderly, or to those who have dementia, and just sit with them. It's an opportunity for us to practice engaging with aging, sickness, and death—three of our greatest teachers in Buddhism. I'm pitching it out loud because of that need. You don't have to raise your hand, you can come afterwards and chat with me if it's something you might be interested in engaging with. I wanted to share it with the Sangha^[2]. Thank you all.

Gil Fronsdal: Thank you, Conrad, very much. I like to say that this is kind of like a dream come true, that you would be interested in this. I am interested to see what comes out of our community when people do that kind of engagement and bring their practice into the world that way. That is fantastic. It's an important part of what I've wanted us to be about.

I've kind of been waiting a little bit for people to step up and do this, because there's a limited amount of how much it can or should come from the leadership here at IMC. To have it come out of the community is much better. Part of the art of this is to let it be an inspiration, a generosity, and a love that people want to engage in, rather than an obligation. It shouldn't be a "should," but rather feeling that inner inspiration to do this kind of outreach into the world.

That's my hope: that as people practice deeper, and go on retreats, it becomes more and more natural to start living in the world with this generous, compassionate spirit. Hopefully, we will be agents to change society. We know society needs dramatic changes in so many different ways. There's way too much poverty, racism, oppression, discrimination, and political divisiveness. There are all these issues that we should be addressing. There are a number of things we are doing at IMC that come out of the center, but they're done quietly. One of them is our chaplaincy training program that Conrad just finished. Because he did that training, he got invited across the street to the nursing home to care for someone, and that inspired him to do even more.

Amanda: I love that idea and I would be happy to help, but I also have a question that kind of relates to the idea of aging. My name is Amanda. I started to explore Buddhism and spirituality about eight years ago when my dad died and I had a child, so that was an interesting time in my life. Since then, I've really feared death, and I've always tried to figure out how to manage that, and this idea of living in the moment, focusing on the now.

What's interesting for me is that I have two experiences in my life that always make me fear death more, and they involve the two things I love the most: travel and the ocean. Anytime I'm on a plane or anytime I'm in the water, I always think about dying, and it's so overwhelming for me. I was wondering if, from a Buddhist perspective, you had any approaches I could take in my mind in those moments. In the water, I'm like, "Shark, shark, shark," and I know the chance is so small. Same thing on a plane: there's a bump and I'm like, "This is it, this is it." It's really bad if I'm alone, so I fear getting on planes by myself. In the water, I always want my child to come with me, because then I take on this motherly role and I'm not afraid because I'm protecting them. Do you have any suggestions in terms of what I could say to myself in those moments so that this idea of a death situation doesn't consume me so significantly?

Gil Fronsdal: I love the question, and I feel like I want to be careful how I answer it. In a number of languages, including the Buddhist language Pali^[3], the word for fear is etymologically and linguistically connected to the word for danger. In the language I grew up in, Norwegian, the word for fear is related to danger. Etymologically in Pali, the word bhaya means fear, but in context, it also means danger. There are real dangers in this world, and to have some concern and fear around them is probably completely appropriate.

Buddhism has never said you're not supposed to be afraid. There are things that Buddhism clearly wants you to overcome—greed, hatred, and delusion are supposed to be uprooted—but there's no idea that you're supposed to uproot fear. There's this idea of respecting fear, even having a reverence for fear. Lately, I've been reading about reverential fear, especially in terms of the natural world, such as a reverential fear of the ocean. Then there's phobia, which is very different. The difference, I think, is that reverential fear is out of respect and care for something important. But if it's an excessive horror at the dangers of the world because we're so intimidated, fragile, or tender in ourselves, then maybe it's time to look at ourselves more.

Some fear of airplanes seems reasonable to me. Some fear of being on the ocean is very reasonable. I once sailed on a sailboat across the Atlantic, and for a year beforehand, I knew I was going to do that. I had a certain kind of reverential fear of doing it. I was living on the Pacific at the time, so I would go down to the Pacific sometimes and have a little conversation with the ocean to kind of prepare myself and address it, to be ready to go. One thing is to learn how to let appropriate fear be a companion. Learn how to let it be on your shoulder, tagging along, just there to help you be safe.

It's not necessarily a symptom of something that's wrong; it might be a symptom of something that's right. It might even be a deep wisdom connection to the natural world, acknowledging that there are dangers and we have to be respectful of them and find a way to live in harmony with them. But if it's excessive fear that paralyzes us, then it's probably something really deep we need to attend to in ourselves. It's appropriate to spend time with your fear, if you're able to. Some people go into panic; some people with trauma find their fear triggers them worse and worse. In those cases, it's helpful to have support from others, to have people accompany you and help you with the psychological tools to really be with the fear.

If you are able to be with it, the practice is not to avoid fear, but to practice in the middle of the fear, if we have the right balanced middle way to do that. Look for opportunities to be afraid this way. Take lots of plane trips alone, sit with your eyes closed, and really take in the fear. Really be with it. If you have the tolerance and capacity to stay with it without spinning out, then the task is to help the fear feel safe. That's counter-intuitive for some people, because fear is just fear. But when it has deep roots in our own fragility or tenderness, sometimes relating to our life experiences growing up where we learned to have an excessive reactivity to dangerous things, helping the fear feel safe allows it to begin to relax. If we're trying to fix the fear, solve the fear, or psychoanalyze the fear, it's not going to feel safe.

So, look for an opportunity to experience some of that fear. Maybe find a boat that's docked somewhere and just sit on it. It's well-moored and not going anywhere. Maybe you feel safe enough, but just enough of the fear comes up, and then you can sit with it and see what happens. There might be layers and layers of your emotions, beliefs, and attachments that are waiting to be discovered underneath that fear. You might find that the issue is not the fear of the ocean; maybe you're afraid of dying, but specifically the pain of dying. You might think, "Oh no, drowning must be awful." You're not afraid of being dead, but you are afraid of the "how." Even that opens a door for some people to begin finding other relationships to it. Or it might be the fear of leaving your kid behind. I think a primordial fear of a parent is dying before their child has grown up.

That's reasonable. But how do we learn to hold it? If you help the fear feel safe so it can be there, then we can maybe learn to have the fear accompany us and not limit us. It can accompany us without giving rise to anxiety or agitation. Fear, but no freezing up. If we learn to have this wise relationship to fear, then by osmosis, the people around us—especially our children—can feel that this world is not such a scary place. When parents are really scared and anxious all the time, kids learn at a very young age that this world is a dangerous place, and they grow up anxious. The earlier any of us pick this up in childhood, the deeper it's rooted in our hearts. Then it takes a while, if you use meditation practice, to get to the root of it and let it settle. That was a long answer. Are you satisfied with that answer? Okay, good.

Caitlin: My name's Caitlin. This will make my relationship sound a lot worse than it is, but I've noticed over time that while my husband and I are still growing, we seem to be growing maybe in different directions a little bit, and I find more distance between us. I guess my question is, how do we ensure that we still grow together at the same time?

Gil Fronsdal: I think the primary way is to be honest about it. Be honest and find a way to accept each other as you are. If you can't accept something, be honest about that, and find your way with that. I'm a great believer in talking, being honest, and exploring it that way. But saying it as simply as I just did maybe doesn't indicate that sometimes these conversations are very difficult to have. Some people don't want to have those conversations. What do you do when one of the parties isn't capable of, or doesn't want to have, those conversations? Then you have to have this conversation in a stealth way, indirectly. Or you have to figure out what the other party needs to hear, or what they need to relax and feel safe, heard, or understood, so that there can be some space for a little bit of truth-telling to go on.

Sometimes, if the other party doesn't want to grow and doesn't want to talk about something, it can be useful for the person who wants to grow to go talk to a therapist or a couples counselor, and really start looking at what's going on for you. I think one of the great tasks of any relationship, at least from a Buddhist point of view, is: how do you keep your heart completely open regardless of what's happening to the other person? That's a personal exercise, and there are a lot of challenges to that. But in Buddhist practice, we say, "Let's be up to that challenge. Let me keep my heart open no matter what." It doesn't mean that we don't set boundaries, it doesn't mean we don't say no, and it doesn't mean we don't take care of ourselves. But to always have this orientation—"How do I keep my heart open here in these challenges?"—that's the personal work that can be done.

If you both agree to understand each other—oh, just the other thing: if someone doesn't want to talk to you about the relationship or what's going on, then become a really good listener. Offer to the other person what you wish they would give to you. Sometimes that's a stealth way; just really listen and make sure they feel understood and heard. Then sometimes something can relax in the other person, and they become interested in you. So these are just ideas that may or may not work, but I love that you're asking the question because this is probably important in many, many relationships. Is this satisfying enough for now? I'm not that satisfied with my answer, but is it satisfying enough for now? You've already thought about all these things? Yeah. Well, then it's not satisfying! [Laughter]

Steve: Thanks. My name is Steve. Earlier this summer I attended a three-week retreat in a different tradition, the Shambhala Tibetan tradition, which I found very interesting and very useful. I was wondering if you could speak just a little bit about mixing practices in different Buddhist traditions.

Gil Fronsdal: Great, thank you. I've done that. My first training was in Japanese Zen. I did that for many years, and I found that became a foundation for me to do Vipassana^[4] practice. I benefited a lot from doing both. That's not exactly mixing, but it's how they work together.

Often, if you've been in one tradition for a while, studying within another Buddhist tradition—or even another form of spirituality or religion—can help you look back at the practice tradition you've been in and see it in new ways. You might see how beneficial it was, you might see how it really works well, and you might see, "Oh, there are challenges there for me that are maybe not quite right for me." But there's a deeper understanding. I often suggest to people, even if they've done a good number of years in one Buddhist tradition, to step outside for a little bit. Do something else in order to get a better perspective of the tradition. You can come back to your tradition, but you might have a richer, better perspective of it.

Some Buddhist traditions complement each other. I think every Buddhist tradition, every Buddhist center, and every Buddhist teacher has strengths and weaknesses. I can't imagine that's not the case everywhere. You take the strengths that are there and benefit from them, and if you feel there's a weakness, going someplace else can complement it.

In our Vipassana tradition, we strongly encourage practicing with different teachers. I like to think of the circle of teachers as being the whole package. You want to practice with different teachers because they have different teachings and different strengths that they're offering. It's the same with different Buddhist traditions as well. I've known people who have practiced here at IMC who went to the San Francisco Zen Center and found it really beneficial. Some people have done a lot of Vipassana practice and then gone to the San Francisco Zen Center because it's close by, and they found that practicing in a semi-monastic setting was a significant complement to what we do here. I've known Zen students who found that coming here was a really great complement to what they learned at the Zen Center. So there are all kinds of ways that they support each other.

The one thing I would warn against is bouncing back and forth too much, especially if you're a new practitioner. For someone who's relatively new to practice, I'd recommend staying in one tradition in a good, strong way for at least a year. The things people work through in their first year or so of Buddhist practice are kind of the same for everyone, and it doesn't really matter so much who you're practicing with. Once you've worked through the hindrances enough that your mind has learned not to be so distracted and agitated, and you have some sort of inner connection to the Dharma^[5] from practicing, then you have a different eye to understand the different traditions. After a year of practice, you might surface, look around, and check out different traditions to see which one works best for you. You might decide, "I'm staying right here where I am," or you might say, "That was great, thank you, but now I'm going to go do something else."

Will: Hi, I'm Will. I was wondering, how do you maintain hope in the face of an ever-changing world?

Gil Fronsdal: How do you maintain hope and faith in an ever-changing world? It's a great question. Buddhism puts tremendous emphasis on the fact that we live in an ever-changing world. One of the ways to deal with it is: don't hold on to hope and faith, but take a very honest look at the hopelessness and the faithlessness. Where does that need for hope and faith come from in you? What's the sense of despair, anxiety, or hopelessness? What's really happening deep inside? Addressing that might be more important.

Some people get hope, and what they're doing is just laying it on top of their hopelessness without really addressing it. For a while people get inspired—they hear some wonderful teaching or find a solution that gives them hope—but they haven't really dipped down to what was going on deeper inside. In our tradition, I think the emphasis would be, "Let's take a deeper look at what's underneath there before you look for hope and faith."

One of the remarkable things that can happen is this: I don't know you well enough to know if this speaks to you, so just keep in mind it's not a statement about you personally. Hopelessness, faithlessness, or deep doubt are not the absence of something; they are activities themselves. They are mental actions. The mind or the heart is doing something to well up a feeling of hopelessness. The heart is doing something to make you feel, "I have no faith in anything." It feels like there's an absence, but that sense of absence, or the loneliness that Conrad brought up, or the sense of meaninglessness or despair that people can have—those are all activities of the mind. There is energy and activity doing something.

Because it's an active, dynamic mental process, it doesn't have to be there. It can be addressed directly. As it feels safe, met, understood, and seen—like with fear—remarkably, it can begin to settle and unravel. As I like to say, some of our problems will not be solved; they will be dissolved. Something like a feeling of hopelessness doesn't require discovering something to have hope in. It turns out hopelessness itself can dissolve, and then there's no need for hope. That's pretty radical, isn't it? Does my answer intrigue you?

Will: I think what you said was true.

Gil Fronsdal: Great. Thank you.

Favad: Hi, my name is Favad. There have been such beautiful questions asked, I feel I'm asking a very mundane question which is really more about practice. I've had attention deficit most of my life, and so I particularly struggle with concentration as I meditate. I tend not to be hard on myself about it, I think I'm good with it, but I would still really appreciate if there are things I could do to bring more concentration into the meditation. Sometimes, even in a half-hour session, I'll feel no more than a minute or two of having been able to focus on the breath. Periodically, I'll gently bring my attention back, but concentration feels to me more of a challenge. Are there ways I can work on it?

Gil Fronsdal: I think that's a profound question, nothing mundane. There's a lot that could be said, and I don't know what to say to you that would perfectly meet your circumstance, but I'll try to say something. It's a little bit unfortunate that the word samadhi^[6] is translated into English as "concentration." If we go with the word "concentration," it's all too easy to think that we need to have a laser focus on something, like a mental act of zeroing in. There are times we have to do that in life, but that reinforces the idea that that's what we're supposed to do in meditation.

The word samadhi can also mean "unification." I like to think of samadhi as the process of becoming whole. If the task is to become whole, as opposed to becoming a laser-like focus, what does it take to become whole? How do we become whole so that the mind is not jumping around, distracting us from that wholeness? As soon as we're distracted, we become partial; we're not whole anymore. One of the ways to become concentrated in this holistic way is not to focus on anything, but to rest on it.

With the breathing, rest on the breathing. To be even more specific and helpful, as you inhale, imagine the breathing is focusing on you, arriving, and making contact with you. On the exhale, you offer yourself to the breathing, and you just rest with the exhale. Receive the inhale, and then just rest there with the exhale. That's where the resting can be.

Over time, that resting might begin opening up a sense of wholeness, a sense of inclusion in the experience. That sense of inclusion of the present moment begins to spread out to include more and more, and you have a feeling that everything is included. Then, when the mind starts going off into its thoughts, if there's a strong sense of wholeness or inclusion, it's like, "Oh, look at that, the mind is wandering off. But I'm not wandering off; the mind is thinking, but I'm not living in the thought. I'm not identified with it." You'll see the thought just arise, and you watch it come with a clear sense of being mindful of it, and it just dissolves—kind of like a cloud that dissolves in the sky—because you're not participating in it or feeding it. Does that intrigue you?

Favad: Definitely, that was quite helpful. I do tend to think of concentration as the inhales and the exhales, and that resting concept really intrigues me. Thank you.

Gil Fronsdal: Great, thank you. It's time to stop, but I saw a couple of people wanted to ask a question. Let's take a two-minute break. If some of you are ready to leave now, please do, and thank you for being here. If some of you would like to stay to continue the questions, maybe come up closer or just stay where you are, and we'll continue in about two or three minutes. Thank you everyone.

Pinja: Hi, my name is Pinja. I have two related questions. If I heard correctly earlier, there's no program for high schoolers?

Gil Fronsdal: Yes there is. We call it the teen program. We've had it for many years, and I think it's starting up again. You can ask Hillary, she knows.

Pinja: Okay. The second question is: I have a high school teenager at home, and she has anxiety about her GPA and college applications. We tried to introduce this meditation practice to her, but it's difficult for her to participate. Do you have any suggestions on how she can benefit from meditation?

Gil Fronsdal: High school students are like a different species. I had two of them growing up in our house! I think what you're asking is hard. It's very important how parents care for a teenager. There are so many different teenagers and so many different psychological needs that need to be addressed. Some of them even need to be in therapy if it's really serious. It's hard to grow up in this society; this society does a lot of people a great disservice. Growing up locally here on the Peninsula has very unique stresses regarding success, what success is supposed to look like, and getting ahead.

If the parents are relaxed and clearly just love the person—if the kid feels that what's coming from the parents is that they just want them to be happy and accept them as they are—that can help. Showing that there's no need to go to college, no need to get ahead and be a doctor or something, but just to find what works for them. Saying, "Take your time, and we will support you with whatever you do. Take a gap year if you would like to do that, to really relax from all this and get a better sense of what you want." If parents convey that they are not tied into the popular culture about what success means and what you have to do to be "good," and just show that they will love the kid no matter what, that sometimes counts for a lot.

Someone gave me advice before my kids became teenagers. He said, "When your kids become teenagers, they're hardly going to recognize that you're home. It will be almost like you don't exist. But that's not true; it's even more important that you stay home and be present, because they are noticing somehow." I learned a saying recently that I thought was really true, and I wish I had known it when I was a parent of young kids: adults want to be listened to; young kids want to be seen.

I remember once when my youngest son was a toddler, playing with blocks on the living room floor. I was sitting next to him, watching him. He was humming a little tune. After a while, I thought, "Well, he doesn't need me. He's happy, he's engaged, he's humming, and I have things to do." So I got up to do something else. He immediately stopped humming. The fact that I was there watching him made a huge difference to him; it was meaningful for him. I had thought he couldn't care less that I was there, that he was ignoring me. Kids might act like they are not paying attention, but they are paying attention deeply, maybe more deeply than they know. Be present at home. Don't be distracted when you're home. Even if they are distracted by their technology, be there and be available.

My wife reminded me of this when my sons were teenagers. I didn't have much chance to talk to them. I'd ask them questions at dinner, and they'd look at me like I was stupid. I would get one-word answers: "How was school today?" "Good." [Laughter] My wife said, "You just have to be around and available, and at some point, something comes out." So, for a daughter who has a lot of anxiety, I don't know when she'll be ready to share, but be available when she does. I don't know your specific situation, but those are the thoughts that come to mind.

Pinja: Very helpful, thank you.

Kurt: Thank you. My name is Kurt. Gil, all these questions and answers have been fantastic. My question relates to the woman earlier who was talking about growing away from her partner. Your response to her was along the lines of keeping your heart open. Can you give us some guidelines, suggestions, or ideas about how to keep our heart open? Because I need to hear some of that.

Gil Fronsdal: I'll offer you a principle that applies in many different situations, similar to the question about hope and hopelessness. Buddhism has a lot of ideals. We live with a lot of ideals in our life, and it's an ideal to have an open heart to everyone. Ideals can be oppressive: "I'm supposed to do this, I must be a good Buddhist, I'm supposed to keep my heart open." The principle is that ideals are good to have as a reference point, as a possibility, as an inspiration. But in mindfulness practice, study what keeps you away from the ideal. Go the other direction. Rather than forcing yourself to be the ideal, understand what gets in the way.

The principle with an open heart is that the natural state of the heart is to be open. We have to do something to close it down. If you understand how you close it, that's the real work. If you use a crowbar to pry it open, the first chance the crowbar goes away, it's going to snap closed again. So, really understand what keeps it closed.

Amy: Hi, I'm Amy. My question has to do with big changes in your life, identity, and also fear. I know in Buddhism there's non-self and non-clinging. I've had really big changes in my life, including moving. I'm about to get married and hopefully try to get pregnant. There are all these things happening in a very compact timeframe, and it's stirring up a lot of fear. I feel like there's the pressure or stress of the things themselves, and then there's the second arrow of me wishing I wasn't feeling this way, making me feel almost miserable. I feel so much contraction and fear in my heart, and I don't want to feel that. These are also things that I've really wanted in my life; when I take a step back and I'm calm, I feel good about them, and it's the path I'd like to be on.

Gil Fronsdal: I see. And is part of what you call fear actually grief? Are you grieving the loss of some things, maybe the life you had just by yourself?

Amy: Yes, it's more that the things I have wanted are happening, but the grief is for the life I had just for myself.

Gil Fronsdal: There's a healthy way to grieve. Maybe a healthy way to grieve is to spend some time with the life that you've had. When my mother died a year ago, I spent time hiking in the hills here, thinking about our life together, reviewing my memories of her. If my mind got distracted by other things, I'd come back to my mother and stay focused on that. So maybe give yourself some quality time with your life as it's been: appreciating it, remembering it, crying about losing it, and understanding it more.

Maybe it also deserves a little ritual. When people get married, they usually do a ritual. Maybe you could do a ritual of letting go, or saying goodbye, or offering your respect to the life you had. There is a respectful, healthy way of letting something go or moving on. Say goodbye to your life. Maybe you do it with some friends and talk about it and respect it. Don't just have a bachelorette party—I mean, you can do that if you want, but that's not the same thing. Do something respectful. If you deal with your grief that way, the fear might be a lot easier.

As I said, some of the fear might be appropriate. It's actually a healthy, respectful fear: "This is a big deal, there's a big responsibility, this is not an easy thing to step into." An appropriate, respectful fear is one that inspires you to do your best. The neurotic fear that gets in the way is when you get frozen or caught in reactivity. If you can distinguish healthy fear that inspires you from fear that doesn't, then maybe the fear doesn't have to be so problematic. You are afraid of the marriage, but you can know it's healthy to have some degree of it. You can tell your partner, "Today I have some fear about things," as opposed to feeling like there's a problem. Is this an okay answer?

Amy: Yes, it's very helpful. I think sometimes you wonder if you need to listen to the fear and just completely run.

Gil Fronsdal: Fear is always a message. I think it's always good to stop and listen to fear, but don't run. I like to see these difficult emotions—fear, anger, loneliness—all as messengers. We want to listen and find out what's going on at some deeper level. There's wisdom in fear, and there's also attachment. Part of listening to something like fear or anger is finding the message. Sometimes the message is about the world out there, but sometimes the message is, "Boy, am I attached to something, and I need to find out what I'm attached to." I don't know what your message is, but if you run and don't get the message, that's unfortunate.

Mariksa: Hi, I'm Mariksa. My question is a practical one. I'm new to meditation this year, and sometimes I find it difficult to just be with the breathing. I tend to have a monkey mind with a lot of thoughts. So what I've been trying to do is concentrate on one word, like the number one. I don't know if that's a good technique or if I'm just cheating—like doing push-ups on my knees instead of my toes. Does it help with the monkey mind? Instead of latching onto the thought and going into the monkey mind, I just started repeating "one, one."

Gil Fronsdal: I think that's a great thing. Once you're settled enough, then maybe you can settle into the breathing. If it quiets the monkey mind, I think that's great. I use the word "here"—h-e-r-e—for the same purpose. When my mind is too busy and I can't be present, I just say "here", and then I rest. What's here? That works really great for about half a second, and I'm happy for that half a second. Then I'll say "here" again, and I get three-quarters of a second. Eventually, it settles down, and I'm here. So that sounds good to me. Thank you. We have to make room for the family program now, so thank you all very much.