Guided Meditation: Situation Centered Instead of Self-Centered

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The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on June 13, 2020. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Situation Centered Instead of Self-Centered

Thank you for being here and for listening and participating in the meditation we're about to do. I'm very happy that we have the opportunity to do this together. When we settle in and understand, and really settle into mindfulness meditation, there are all kinds of shifts that happen for the person. One of those shifts is to change from being self-centered to being situation-centered.

Often, we are very self-centered and self-concerned. Our thoughts are primarily about how we're the subject of our thoughts in one way or another, and we orient ourselves to the world so we can be safe and so that we can get what we want. They say we can be living in the control tower, manipulating, concerned about things, identifying a particular part of who we are, experiencing "being who I really am" and holding on to that.

Some of this is pretty natural, maybe even healthy at times, but in meditation the opportunity, and often what happens as people settle, is that we still stay very centered. It's really healthy to be centered in a place, but to be situation-centered—where the awareness is like a light bulb that goes on in a dark room and it radiates out everywhere to include everything. It certainly is aware of the feelings, the thoughts, and the body sensations that are happening close by here in this body.

But we're aware of it without being so self-centered about it. We're aware of it as being kind of, in Buddhist language, as Dharma^[1]. In English, we might say as nature—just nature that's here. To experience and feel this natural world without the globbing on or contraction of self is one of the great joys of meditation practice and Buddhist practice. There's not really a loss to let go of being self-centered; I think of it more as a gain. It's a gain of phenomenal peace, phenomenal wisdom, connectivity, even compassion and love, if we can get out of the way.

So as we sit today, you might want to consider that we're sitting here to get out of our own way, to get out of being self-centered in any kind of narrow way, but to open up from the inside out to be situation-centered. And as we get pulled into thoughts that may very well be concerned with "me, myself, and mine"—not so much to condemn those or criticize them, but at that point, remember there is so much more here. What animates our life, what moves through our life is so much more than any way we can be thinking about it or identifying with it.

So when we get caught^[2] in our thoughts, open up again from the inside out. Turn on the light bulb of awareness to sit here in the center of your universe.

To take that place at the center, it's useful to be conscious, clear, and intentional with assuming your posture for meditation. That intentionality around sitting down or taking a posture is the beginning of being centered in the situation you're in, in the circumstance here.

It might be helpful to just really feel the places of contact where the body touches the chair, your cushion, the floor, your bed—wherever you are. Feel the places where the contact is strongest, because that's where the weight of the body travels and settles and is received by the firmness of the ground, of the support that holds you up. And to establish yourself here, in this situation now, you might take these long, slow, deep breaths, a ritual of entering into here gently, tenderly. Breathing in gently, tenderly, extending the exhale just a little so there's an intentionality and knowingness so that you feel^[3] you're here with this breath.

And perhaps as you inhale, take a deeper inhale, and as you inhale, notice places in your body you can relax so you breathe more fully. Relaxing the belly to yield to the inhale. Relaxing the chest to yield to the inhale. And perhaps even the shoulders have a way of yielding to the inhale.

And with the exhale, letting go, letting go into this moment now.

As you exhale, maybe relaxing and softening the tensions in your head, especially those associated with thinking, and then letting your breathing return to normal.

Your breathing is natural, it's nature operating through you. It's an amazing natural process for mammals to breathe. And like all mammals, you have inherited this process of breathing.

For the most part, the body breathes itself. Your body can breathe without you thinking about breathing. Breathing does not have to be identified with the usual ideas of self. Tune in to your breathing as nature.

Perhaps no different than watching the wind sway the trees—they sway back and forth in the wind—so the body moves with the winds of breath. It is a natural phenomenon here.

And perhaps with your imagination, your intuition, or some direct experience, you can have a feeling of what it's like to be aware without being centered on self. Self-concern, self-assertion, self as the doer, the experiencer. Some sense of awareness that itself is just nature being aware, nature knowing itself.

And whatever occurs while you're sitting here, perhaps you can somehow, even as a teeny bit, as a hint into it, feel how just nature arises and passes. It's just a natural flow and unfolding^[4] of things, and your awareness is in the middle of it. The practice is situation-centered here, aware.

And if you are aware of self and selfing, perhaps you can intuit that that too is just nature operating. You don't have to believe it, you can just nod at it and say, "Yep, nature does that too." All things are allowed. And with awareness, we get out of our own way to just be aware as things unfold.

Whatever is happening now, see it is just nature, nature expressing itself. No need to assume itself or hold on to itself. Even selfing is nature. Let awareness itself be the center of a situation-centered meditation. And whatever arises in meditation, perhaps you can center^[5] into it: it's just nature, no self needed.

When all things are nature in their constructions, and attachments to "me, myself, and mine" are no longer at the center, then a situation-centered life is also a heart-centered life. Where there is the natural capacity to care, to love, to be connected with all beings, to include in the situation the circumstances of those around us, and in the world. And in this situation-centered life, it's the heart's wish to nurture, to care for, to support, to be concerned for the welfare of others, to care.

And through our care, we can give voice to the heart's wish that all beings be happy, that all beings be healthy, that all beings be free of oppression. May we, as we get out of our own way, get out of the way of others. May we not be an obstacle to the happiness and thriving of others. May all beings be happy.