Guided Meditation: Meditating with "Yes"; Dharmette: Binding and Unbinding (1 of 5) Unwholesome Desire and Wholesome Desire

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Meditation: Meditating with Yes; Binding and Unbinding (1 of 5) Unwholesome and Wholesome Desire. 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 May 23, 2022. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Meditating with "Yes"

Good morning everyone, and I appreciate very much the many greetings on the chat. For the familiar names that I see, it's nice to feel like I've come back after being gone for two weeks, and it is nice to be here.

For this guided meditation, I would like to evoke a quality, impulse, or desire that maybe isn't evoked that often in Buddhist practice, and that is a strong desire for practice, to do this practice. Often, the reputation Buddhism has—sometimes as a caricature—is that it's about not having desires, that desires are bad, and we should have no desires so we can let go of them. That's not true. There are particular kinds of desires to be let go of, and other kinds of desires to live by and engage in.

We undermine ourselves, short-change ourselves, and limit ourselves by not appreciating the healthy desires that we have. The desire to become free of suffering, the desire to let go of the ways in which other desires limit us and bring more suffering to us—the desire to overcome those doesn't have to be limiting. It doesn't have to be a source of suffering. It's the movement out of suffering. We need to have it, and to have a strong desire. Learning how to have a strong desire that's not stressful, that's easeful, that makes the heart sing and feels great—saying, "Yes, this is what I want to do."

So, assume a meditation posture. Perhaps sit up a little bit straighter than normal so that the chest is—without being strained or puffed up—a little more open to the possibility of confidence, being confident.

Then lower your gaze down towards the floor, perhaps, or in some way having your gaze, if your eyes are open, be soft and relaxed. Not looking at anything in particular. Maybe even the eyes are gently moving about, but not really looking at anything. And then, if it's comfortable, gently close your eyes and gently let your body relax.

It's almost as if there's an invitation from your body to release the holding that's throughout your body, maybe in the micro-muscles. Softening the shoulders. Softening the belly. Maybe relaxing the muscles of the face around the eyes, cheeks, and jaws. Maybe the area around your lips and your mouth can be more relaxed if you let your lips fall apart slightly. And if you want them touching, gently float them together again.

Taking a few long, slow, deep breaths, and relaxing again throughout your body as you exhale. Then, letting your breathing return to normal in whatever way it's available to you. Nothing dramatic. Feel the stillness or the quiet within. And within that stillness and quiet, say the word "yes"—Y-E-S—and see what gets evoked in a simple "yes."

And then say again, "yes" to this meditation period, to the practice of meditation now. "Yes." It may be a "yes" again for being mindful, being aware here and now. "Yes, this is the practice." Perhaps a "yes" that doesn't disturb whatever degree of calm or quiet there is inside, but it does gently animate it, energize it with a sense of purpose, a sense of willingness to engage, to practice.

And then, if you're going to be with your breathing during the sitting, maybe your label, your note for the exhale can be "yes." Or for the inhale, a gentle, quieting "yes" that keeps you on track, keeps you here. A certain heightened attentiveness to just this moment of practice. Here, now. "Yes, this is the place to be, to practice in this body at this time." An affirmation that gives some weight or intenseness to being here and now with a quiet, attentive mind.

It is all too easy to say, maybe unconsciously, "yes" to a distracted mind. Instead, say "yes" to being here and now in this practice of mindfulness. Let that "yes," that affirmation of the practice, the desire to do it, emerge and arise out of the depth of your being.

And then, as we come to the end of the sitting, turn the attention outward into the world. The world that is filled with both suffering and happiness, filled with potential for greater suffering and greater happiness. Look upon that world with a "yes" to meeting it, caring for it, and valuing all the people and beings of this world. Saying "yes" to whatever movement of heart you might have that wishes for the happiness and welfare of others, for everyone.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings be free. And may the wholesome desire to work for this possibility live in us, for our own welfare and happiness as well. May we become freer through the desire to bring freedom to others.

Dharmette: Binding and Unbinding (1 of 5) Unwholesome Desire and Wholesome Desire

Hello everyone, and greetings on this beginning of the week. This week, what I'd like to do is to pair up for these five days teachings about five things that tie us down—five things which bind us—with five things that untie us, which unbind us.

I think often this tradition of ours tends to have a lot of lists for things that are attachments and defilements, and what brings us suffering. But to clearly link these to their opposite—that which moves in the other direction—I think will clarify some of what this Buddhist practice is about.

These five will be rāga, dosa, moha, conceit (I can't remember the Pali for the fourth at the moment^[1]), and diṭṭhi^[2] (views). These are sometimes translated into English. The first one is greed, but there's another word that's a better fit for greed. The word rāga is often translated into English as lust or passion. And then there's aversion or hostility, delusion, conceit, and speculative views—being caught up in stories and opinions.

The opposite of those can be a variety of things. Ardency and determination is a kind of desire, a healthy desire. Restraint and avoiding is a healthy kind of aversion in a sense. Instead of delusion, there is insight and understanding. Instead of conceit, there is a powerful form of confidence that we might almost say is self-confidence. And then, instead of speculative views—being caught up in opinions and all that—there is a real understanding.

So the first one is rāga, pairing that up with ardency, with determination, perseverance, engagement, and a desire to practice. Here we point out that there's often an assumption that Buddhism is critical of desires, that all desires are somehow wrong, that the problem of life is that we have desires, and the ending of desires is the whole point of all this. What we're ending is unhealthy desires—desires which keep us limited, in bondage, and caught up in themselves. We're awakening within us desires for freedom, desires which are healthy, healing, and beneficial.

It is not just simply awakening healthy desires, but also letting them become strong. A real sense of ardency, of ardor, of dedication. Getting oriented and organized like, "This is important," and really doing it. Some of us put our life energy behind this. This is what we're doing, no question about it.

This difference between desires that bind us and desires which untie us, that free us, is such an important distinction. It plays itself out in all five of these that we're going to talk about this week. It's a distinction we want to learn to be wise about: to recognize the distinction between that which brings strain, stress, despair, contraction, and a limited, narrow feeling, versus that which helps us to feel expansive, open, happy, and free.

Narrowing and contracting does reinforce conceit. That tightening up, the inward focus that suffering brings, gives birth to a very tight kind of self-preoccupation. Whereas the expansive movement of the path, of the practice, of the possibility of freedom tends to free us from excessive self-preoccupation, from this tightening around self. With that, it gives room for there to emerge all kinds of wonderful qualities of heart: inner qualities of love, compassion, love of freedom, love of truth, love of peace. All kinds of things come that free us from the self, speaking of self-preoccupation.

On one hand, for today, we have rāga. Rāga, as I said, is often translated as lust, sometimes as passion. There is a rāga which is the lust or passion for the senses, and there is the lust or passion for views and stories. What it is, is a strong, intense form of compulsive desire. I think of it as a drivenness, a desire which has us by the nose. We have almost no choice but to follow it, or be pushed around by it, or give in to it. It's very, very compelling—a compulsive passion.

Sometimes in modern English, the word passion is a very positive quality. But when it's used to translate Buddhist texts, it really means a very strong, compulsive force where there's no freedom in it. It is a compulsivity that involves suffering, which I think is the original Latin meaning for the word passion. The Passion of Christ was the suffering of Christ.

And so, rāga is one of the fundamental sources for suffering, for bondage. In one of the ways the three poisons^[3] are listed, rāga is something which is poisonous. You might protest a little bit, but you have to appreciate that the definition of whatever rāga is, is that it's a poison. It's something which hurts, something that has barbs and thorns in it that are often not seen. The promise of compulsive desires of different kinds is a promise of pleasure that comes along with imaginations of pleasure—how wonderful it will be and how much good it's going to do us.

And so we're tricked sometimes by the imagination, by what the future's possibilities are, so that we're not really present for the cost of these compulsive desires in the present moment. But this kind of study, this kind of exploration, becomes clearer and clearer when we meditate. To argue about desires without meditating is probably not going to be very productive. But as we begin meditating and getting quieter, stiller, and more mindful, then we start seeing the cost of what happens in our minds. Something that seemed fine in daily life—because we're not really that sensitive as we go about daily life—we see in meditation is actually quite limiting. It's not only limiting, but it's quite undermining of ourselves, or it brings a kind of stress and tension that is very different from a calm, quiet meditation where the mind is open, relaxed, and present.

Meditation is a wonderful laboratory to see the shortcomings of compulsion, the shortcomings of passionate cravings and clingings—the passion for power, the passion for money, the lust for money, the lust for power. Exactly which English words we want to use to translate rāga is not so clear. Rāga is not something that goes away quickly; it's something which slowly, over time, fades away.

One of the meanings of rāga is a dye^[4], and the movement of the practice is virāga^[5], which is a fading of the dye. It's a fading of lust, of this drivenness. How does it fade away? Well, partly by the opposite. There has to be a strong desire, and the desire for freedom can be as strong or stronger than any compulsive desire we have, provided that there is not compulsion in it, that there's not tension or strain in that desire.

The Buddha emphasized a lot of words for having a strong desire for practice: ardency, ardor. Sometimes it's translated into English with the word "striving"—a word which is really resisted by Western English Dharma teachers. Even myself, I hesitate to use the word "striving" because English speakers will often feel tense from that, like straining. If they're striving, it's kind of synonymous with strain. But the determination, the perseverance, a big "yes"—that's why I like the word "yes." Because it has this uplifting and opening quality, to practice with a "yes": "This is what I'm doing. I'm practicing on the path of freedom. Yes, to be present here."

We are allowed in Buddhist practice to have a strong dedication, a strong devotion to the path of freedom. That might mean that we give it a big priority in our life. Maybe we clear the table, clear our lives of a lot of things which distract from that. Some of them might be worthwhile in their own right, but we have a really important thing to do: this path of freedom. To feel that desire, to feel that awaken, and to heed it, to listen to it: "Yes, this is what I'm going to do."

Certainly, it would be nice to make that "yes" a counter to the ways in which desire limits us, constricts us, undermines us, drains us, or brings us immeasurable suffering of all kinds. To have another path, and to feel the possibility of saying "yes" to it in a strong, determined way—this we're allowed to do in Buddhism.

It's a message some people don't hear. They hear the opposite, almost like you just accept and be present in some kind of gentle, soft way and don't try a lot. But trying with this healthy desire is one of the great pleasures of life—the pleasure of practicing with enthusiasm. The kind of enthusiasm that helps the mind quiet and become peaceful. As I said, the laboratory of meditation is one of the great places to discover how there can be strong, healthy desire in a way that helps bring greater peace, greater calm, and greater settledness. Calm, peace, and strong ardor can go hand in hand.

Thank you for this. I hope this has given you something to consider, and for you to spend some time the next day to see if you can find out the physical, emotional, and mental distinction, the sensations and experience—the difference between a compulsive desire and a freeing desire. And if you can see that difference, maybe you can set your freeing desire free to support you in your life. Thank you.