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audiodharma:
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    - date: '2021-08-02'
      mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/13946/20210802-Diana_Clark-IMC-allowing.mp3
      speakers:
        - speaker_name: Diana Clark
          speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/240
      talk_start_time_seconds: 1906
      title: Allowing
      url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13946
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    - date: '2021-08-02'
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      speakers:
        - speaker_name: Diana Clark
          speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/240
      talk_start_time_seconds: 0
      title: 'Guided Meditation: Allowing'
      url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13960
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location_city: Redwood City, CA
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  imprecise_upload_date: '2022-05-04'
  title: 'Guided Meditation: Allowing; Talk: Allowing'
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  uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center
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youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zg5QM_oq9g
---

# Allowing; Guided Meditation: Allowing - [Diana Clark](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/240)

_This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers._

## [Guided Meditation: Allowing](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13960)

Good evening, good evening, and a really warm welcome. Wherever you are, whenever it is you're listening to this or watching this, a really warm welcome.

So we'll begin with a guided meditation.

Just arriving. Arriving at this moment, this place, this occasion. And just feeling into this moment, breathing into the body.

Feeling into maybe that general mood. Is there some anticipation, or maybe some lack of energy, some dullness? Maybe there's some brightness, some uprightness. Whatever it is, can we welcome it? Can we welcome it, include it?

Letting the attention rest in the sense of having a body. How do you know you have a body? What does it feel like to have a body?

And then resting the attention on the parts of the body that are breathing, the movements associated with breathing. Feeling in the chest or the belly. Feeling the expansion, then contraction. And then expansion, contraction. Feeling into the rhythm of the breath.

When we notice that the mind wanders, as it's apt to do, we just very simply, gently begin again.

It might be that there are some sounds, maybe some uncomfortable sensation in the body. Can we allow these experiences to be there? After all, they are there. Can we not wrestle with them or push them away? Just allow them to be there without turning them into problems.

There is sound. It sounds like this. There is throbbing or stabbing in the knee, perhaps. Without trying to shove away the experience, but instead having an openness, a spaciousness, allowing that experience to be there. And it might be that with our allowing, it allows something to shift. Maybe the ecosystem of the mind, of the experience, to shift. And perhaps the problem-ness of the experience drains away. Or maybe not.

For the purpose of this meditation session, can we soften any sense of having to fix things, make them be otherwise, and instead allow them to be as they are? Our experiences. Not big conceptual ideas about the nature of society, but our felt experience in this moment. Experiences of breathing. The experience of hearing. The experience of having bodily sensations.

Allowing doesn't mean that we agree or approve with our experience. It means we're not wrestling or struggling with the experience.

To allow what our experience is, is to put down the struggle, the push, the pushing away, that pulling closer that might be happening in an obvious way or in a subtle way. Instead, can we just notice what is happening and let it happen? Let the experience be there. Let it arise and pass away.

In this way, our practice can be more about finding the freedom in each moment, rather than trying to make the moment be something different. And with this orientation and this experience of finding the freedom in our meditation, it can support our daily life, recognizing that we don't have to fix everything. We don't have to change everything to match our preferences.

So that we might have more freedom and ease in what life brings us. And so that ease might also be picked up on or experienced by others around us. So that our practice can be of benefit not only for ourselves but for those around us, and for all beings everywhere.

## [Allowing](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13946)

Good evening, good evening, and a really warm welcome.

So at IMC, sometimes we teach this practice. I think Gil Fronsdal and Tanya Wiser developed it, or I'm not exactly sure what the word is, but it's RAFT. It kind of has some tools to help if there's some difficulties during meditation, some difficult experiences, difficult emotions, physical experiences, whatever it might be. RAFT: Recognize, Allow, Feel in the body, and Tease apart the experience from our reaction to the experience.

So tonight I thought I would unpack a little bit just the second element, _allow_. That can be an integral part of our practice. Mindfulness practice is allowing what's there, but maybe to unpack it a little bit more, what does this mean to allow? Part of what this means when we use this language _allow_, what it's pointing to is distinguishing between what is happening in this moment and our reactions, our responses, our ideas about what is happening in this moment. So instead of getting lost in our response, our reaction, is to align ourselves with what is actually happening. That is to just be present with what's happening.

There might be these ways in which we are subtly—I notice I certainly have, early in my meditation practice, I certainly noticed that I was doing this kind of secretly hoping like, if I ignore it, it'll go away, or if I push it enough, it'll go away. Whatever was unpleasant in my experience, or if I wished it would go away hard enough, it would go away. So to allow is to put that down. And instead to just kind of, in some ways, have some openness and some spaciousness. Recognizing, "Oh yes, okay, that sensation in my knee is a stabbing sensation. It's a little moving in this small range, maybe, and it's not constant. And sometimes it feels a little bit more stabby at other times, or more acute than other times." So not pushing or pulling away from our experience, but just to be there. Just to notice, allow the awareness, allow the attention to land, if you will, on the experience and to be okay with it.

So when I'm talking about allowing, I'm really talking about our experiences, our moment-to-moment experiences. I'm not talking about societal constructs and the terrible injustices and racism that happens, and I'm not saying that we should allow this. No, no, no. I'm talking about just allowing that next moment of experience, and then the next moment of experience. Whether it's a thought, maybe an emotion, a bodily experience, sensations of breathing, whatever it might be, is there a way that we can not push it or try to shift it or shape it into something different?

Allowing is to allow both the pleasant and the unpleasant. Often we think about we have to allow the unpleasant, but sometimes when something is pleasant too, there can be a sense of like, "Oh yes, oh yeah, right, right," and this kind of wanting to grab onto it. But allowing is permitting both the pleasant and the unpleasant to arise and pass away, this natural movement that's natural with that rhythm. Of course, it happens at a different pace. Some experiences seem to be faster and some seem to be slower, but to permit them to just arise and pass away in the tempo that is appropriate.

And as I mentioned in the guided meditation, it doesn't mean that we have to agree with it. It doesn't mean that we have to approve of our experience. Right now, of this little uncomfortable experience in my knee, I don't necessarily approve of it, but can I just allow it to be there? Yes, this is part of the felt experience at this moment.

So can we meet our experiences? Maybe that's another way of saying allowing, is to just be able to meet it. Like turn towards it in some kind of way. So often in our daily life and in our meditation life, things turn out better if we are just able to meet it and turn towards it as best we can. Sometimes we don't have the capacity at that particular moment. We're feeling overwhelmed, or we don't have the resources at that moment. We're tired, we're hungry, maybe we have a history in our background that makes us really sensitive to particular experiences, so we don't have the whole range of resources we might have if it were another experience. But to allow is to meet it as best we can.

And so maybe at the deepest level, this idea of allowing is an invitation to bring an attitude or a quality of liberation into our experience. This attitude or quality of freedom. Not getting tangled up, not getting knotted up, not getting attached. So can we find a bit of freedom in all of our experiences? And not just those ones that match our preferences, but instead, can we find the freedom or be with the freedom with all of our experiences?

In some ways, we might say that all of the Dharma is about non-attachment. Or another way to say that is all of the Dharma is about letting go. Maybe another way to say that is all of the Dharma is about finding freedom. Maybe another way to say that is all of the Dharma is about tuning into the suffering. Right, all of these are related, and we might use different words that seem appropriate at different times to match our experiences. But one way we might also think about allowing is non-attachment.

So attachment, we might say, is when there's a lack of freedom. That is, for me, I kind of feel like getting tangled up, like in a net somehow. Maybe sometimes it's not a nice visual, because sometimes with that comes the suffering of some poor animals that are tangled up in a net. But just this idea of like, it's not clear how to get out, how to free oneself. Sometimes Dharma teachers talk about like there being a tar baby. You know, the story—I can't bring to mind right now where this story is from—but like trying to push something away and it's really sticky. So to try to free the hand, you put in the other hand, and then now both hands are stuck. And then you know what the story is. Or it gets a little bit ridiculous, putting the foot to pull out the two hands, thinking if you just push it away, and then of course the foot is stuck. And then the remaining limb gets stuck. I can't remember in this story if it's the head also, but you get the picture. Not a lot of freedom.

So with our mindfulness practice, we start to see that actually we can get attached or tangled up with just about anything. Whether it is a bodily experience, whether it's an emotion, whether it's a thought. The thoughts about a memory, about the future in some way. Thoughts about the future, this whirring and this going around and around, this rumination, and maybe playing out scenario after scenario in a way that's not helpful. Maybe it's helpful at the beginning to do this, to play out different scenarios so you can plan and be prepared, but then there comes a time when it's not helpful, and instead it's just this rumination.

So I would say that's a way of being attached or tangled. Sometimes we think of this word, of being attached, means that there's affection or some real bonding happening with something else. But I'm using it in this way: attachment is kind of like being entangled or just an absence of freedom. So when we start to, with our mindfulness practice, we start to see the fact that we can get attached to just about anything, and I would say it's actually normal. It's normal to get a little bit stuck in our thinking and our experience. As we gain skills and gain confidence in how to be with things that are uncomfortable, we don't have to judge this when we notice that we are finding that we're attached, we find ourselves stuck to something very sticky. Because that, in fact, would be getting entangled even more. That's a kind of like judging ourselves and then building a story all around, "Oh, I'm overly concerned with this sensation in my knee. Really, Diana, you shouldn't be worried about the sensation in your knee, you're supposed to be a meditation teacher, and what does this mean that you keep on thinking about this sensation in your knee?" And so that is an example of just being attached. Right, kind of being entangled is even this response to initially maybe getting lost in thoughts about it or concern about it, and then having ideas about our ideas. _Papañca_[^1], this mental proliferation, this story-making.

Or we can be attached to our bodies, the way our bodies are. We can be attached to our emotions, some of them trying to push them away. Mental states, wanting to only have some clarity and some steadiness. So allowing is the opposite of this. Just letting experiences arise and pass away.

So to say a little bit more about attachment, and whatever it is that we find that we're tangled up with, I've seen Gil do this demonstration of what attachment is. It is to really be holding on so tightly to this bell striker. So I kind of have a fist in my hand, with the bell striker in my hand. And when the hand is gripping tightly in this way, it's not able to receive. This hand is not able to create, it's not able to give, it's not able to act, it's not able to do. It's stuck and gripping. In some ways, we might even say this kind of gripping includes on a subtle level this really deep, very deep and perfectly normal, or maybe natural way to push away that which is uncomfortable, that which is unpleasant. But is there a way that we can hold things with an open hand? With the striker lying just in the palm of our hands, but our fingers aren't gripping it, so that we can hold things without getting tangled up in them.

And so how do we know what the difference is? How do we know this difference between holding—certainly we need to hold all kinds of things in our lives, our loved ones, our aspirations, our skills, and our practice. So what is the difference between attachment and holding? One is that there's a felt sense about it. This idea of gripping, my fingers were getting a little bit tired holding that striker. So there's many different ways that shows up. But maybe a telltale way in which we can notice when attachment is there, is when there is suffering. Sooner or later all gripping, tangling leads to difficulties, dissatisfaction, stress, uncomfortableness.

So to continue kind of fleshing this out, that I'm saying allowing is like non-attachment. But when we hear this word non-attachment, I'm saying that to be the opposite of attachment, or gripping, or getting entangled. But sometimes when we hear this word non-attachment, we might be thinking detachment. That is, it might have this cool aloofness. We might have this idea like non-attachment might feel like some disinterest, or withdrawal, or disconnection, either from oneself or from others. So to be clear, non-attachment doesn't mean this standoffishness, chilliness, lack of engagement. But instead, allowing has this quality of love and warmth and care.

Right, sometimes the greatest acts of love are to allow people to be exactly who they are. And so in some ways, to allow our experiences to be the way that they are is an act of love. It's kind of—and we can think of it, for me it kind of feels this way—with some respect and, "Okay, this is what's arising." It's arising because the conditions are there for it to arise. It's arising, so I can't make it go away at that moment when I notice it. So this non-attachment has a feeling of love or warmth and openness, spaciousness, kind of like how I talked about holding the striker with an open hand. So this movement of allowing is not a tightness, it's not a contraction, it's not a gripping. Sometimes attachment is born out of fear. This fear of something in ourselves that we'll experience, or this fear of something out there in the world. But this allowing is not laced with fear. It's instead with warmth.

So to continue to unpack this idea, and perhaps all of you know this, but sometimes it's—I know for me, and I think for a lot of practitioners—sometimes it's helpful to hear a number of different words associated with something that we already know. To remind us of what we already know and to maybe flesh it out a little bit. And that is, of course, this idea of the second arrow. The simile of the second arrow goes something like this. I'm paraphrasing. The Buddha asks his followers, "Is it painful to be shot with an arrow?" It's not a trick question. So they answer, "Yes, venerable sir, it is painful to be shot with an arrow." And then the Buddha asks, "Is it more painful to be shot with a second arrow?" Again, not a trick question. "Yes, venerable sir, it's more painful to be shot with a second arrow." So the first arrow is what life brings us. The second arrow is our relationship to what life brings us. So we might say that allowing is not shooting that second arrow. Not filling ourselves with self-recrimination, or not getting tangled up in whatever way that might be. So not beating ourselves up about what's happening, or just noticing, "Okay, this is the next moment." Because sometimes we have these ideas of what it means to be a practitioner, that we should look a certain way or only be having certain experiences.

So one way that we might think about this, building on this idea of the second arrow, is allowing is a way in which we might shift our relationship with what's happening. Soften our relationship, relax our relationship. That can be another way in which we might think about this. Because often when we think about we have these ideas, "How can I let go of something?" or "How can I not be attached to something?" What we really mean is, "How can I get rid of this? How can I have this not be in my life?" So without really realizing it, we have some aversion there. And as long as there's aversion there, that's a way in which we're entangled. So can we soften, can we relax, can we let go of the particular relationship we have to our experience as a way to allow?

And maybe I should just say one more time, it's a normal human experience to become entangled, to become attached, to not allow in maybe some subtle way. So the invitation here is just to notice. Just to notice when this happens.

So as to increase some of our understanding about allowing, is to talk about what are some of the supports for allowing? If I just got finished saying it's perfectly natural and normal for us to have some attachment and to get tangled up and to not allow, and with practice we can allow more and more and more. But what else? What is a support for allowing? And one thing that we could look at is Barbara Fredrickson, a well-known psychologist. She has this idea of "broaden and build." Broaden and build. It's kind of a little bit similar to what we're doing. This idea of if we have some positive experiences, it broadens our capacity. And then with this broad capacity, we can build resources. And the resources are more enduring than just these positive experiences.

So for example, just being curious or having interest creates the urge to play. Having a sense of playfulness or experimentation. "What happens if I do this?" or "What happens if this doesn't go this way, or it goes another way?" or something like this. Taking in some new information, or just being playful with it. In the same way, having joy creates the urge to maybe explore or to otherwise expand out our experience. Having some happiness. So when we're having these positive experiences, we're more apt to do some other experiences, explore or play. And with that helps create some resources. Like maybe we might explore some other ways in which to practice with... I'm a little bit distracted here. Somebody just arrived here. But maybe if we have this urge to explore and play, for example, maybe we're a little bit more apt to—our health might improve, for example. Maybe we go outside more and go for walks. Or maybe we are more likely to do the physical therapy that has been recommended to us, or to take that medication that was maybe uncomfortable to take or bothersome to take, or something like this. We're more apt to do these things if we have some idea of exploration or play, for example, in our lives. In the same way, it might help our relationships. Maybe our friendships, or our committed relationships with our significant others might be enhanced. And then with these greater resources, health, relationships, or maybe just a greater sense of confidence or resilience, it can help us to create the capacity in which we feel like we can allow things that are uncomfortable. We don't have to push them away. We don't have to get so entangled with them. So this idea of broaden and build is to work to have some positive experiences: curiosity, joy, happiness, loving-kindness. And these experiences help to create durable resources that help expand our capacity to be with difficulties, which makes it easier to allow things to be.

So maybe I'll just end with a little bit of some idea about loving-kindness. Part of Barbara Fredrickson's work has been to look at loving-kindness and its impact on practitioners. And maybe when you heard me say this, you're like, "Ugh, really? Loving-kindness?" I know a number of people have this experience, and I certainly did too at the very beginning. But interestingly, they did a controlled study where some practitioners were doing loving-kindness, some were doing breath meditation, and some were doing more like an open awareness meditation. And they said that the average likability for loving-kindness meditation was lower than breath meditation, which might be your experience, maybe not too. However, it increased significantly after some practice. As well as the perceived effort—in the beginning, loving-kindness seemed a little bit more difficult than breath meditation, but decreased over time. And as you might imagine, they also discovered that with loving-kindness practice there was this greater sense of resourcefulness and this ability to be with difficulties. And we can translate that to allowing.

So to allow, to not be tangled up in, to not have attachment, to bring forth the freedom, the liberation that's available in each moment, is to allow. And so, may we allow as best we can with what life is offering to us, in such a way that we can have some ease. And so that we can allow others to be as they are, and what's happening with them out of care and love and warmth. Not out of disconnection, but out of respect and warm-heartedness.

Thank you.

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[^1]: **Papañca:** A Pali word often translated as "mental proliferation," referring to the tendency of the mind to create elaborate stories, concepts, and judgments around our experiences.