---
ai_generation_date: '2026-06-02'
ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview
audiodharma:
  talks:
  - date: '2023-02-26'
    mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/17800/20230226-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-dharma_is_nature.mp3
    speakers:
    - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal
      speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1
    talk_start_time_seconds: 0
    title: Dharma Is Nature
    url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/17800
    video_unavailable: false
location_city: Redwood City, CA
video_unavailable: false
youtube:
  id: TOXPFiHGN74
  imprecise_upload_date: '2023-05-04'
  title: Dharma Is Nature
  upload_date: null
  uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center
  uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter
youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOXPFiHGN74
---

# Dharma Is Nature - [Gil Fronsdal](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1)

*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.*

## [Dharma Is Nature](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/17800)

## Announcements
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to IMC.

The only announcement I have before beginning the talk is that in two weeks, on March 12th, we will have a community meeting here at IMC in person. It will have been just about three years since we closed at the beginning of the pandemic, and it seems like a nice time to mark where we are at, where we are going, our vision of things, how needs have changed, and anything else. It will happen after the sitting, around 11:00 AM. Sometime in April, we will also have an online community meeting for the online community, which is quite large. But it feels important for the people who are local and come here to have a meeting to talk about the in-person dimensions of our community. Please come; anyone is welcome. 

For March, we are still following the COVID protocol of having people sign up for Sunday mornings, but the 11:00 AM community meeting will be open to anyone. We will wear masks inside, but we are getting into a period of time now where we are seriously considering how to change our COVID protocol—is it time to change it, and how to change it? Probably by the beginning of April, we will do some kind of change, though exactly what that change will be, I don't know. 

I just came back from teaching a retreat and an evening sitting group in New Zealand. It was fascinating to go from here to there, where almost no one was wearing masks. To sit in a big room like this with almost no one wearing masks was quite different. I don't know if that marks anything for us in terms of our changes, but it is certainly time to discuss and consider, step by step, what we are going to do differently. 

Thank you to all of you for wearing your masks here. Some of you probably don't see the need for it, and I know that things have changed quite a bit, but I appreciate very much that we are still doing it, and I think it does make a difference.

## Dharma Is Nature
For this talk, I would like to begin with a story that is attributed to the Cherokee people. It is a story that circulated quite a bit right after 9/11. September 11, 2001, was a big deal; its impact on this country and on the world was quite huge, and the emotions were quite strong. So, this story circulated. 

It has to do with a Cherokee grandfather talking to his grandson. He says, "There are two wolves battling inside of us all. One wolf is angry and greedy, wants to destroy, and has envy, conceit, and all these kinds of powerful negative forces that we can have inside of ourselves. The other wolf has love, care, generosity, nurturing, and all these positive forces that we can have."

The grandson sits there quietly for a couple of minutes taking this in, and then says to the grandfather, "Which one will win the battle?" 

The grandfather says, "Whichever one we feed."

That is the strong message of the story: whichever one we feed. If we don't pay attention to what we are feeding, we might inadvertently be feeding the wrong wolf inside of us. We might be doing things that support anger, greed, and conceit rather than supporting being nurturing, loving, and generous.

What is fascinating in comparison is that Buddhism says a similar thing, but in the story, there are two equal forces—two wolves. In Buddhism, a similar kind of process is in play within us. I maybe wouldn't call it a battle, but certainly a balancing act of what gets prominence for us. But they are considered to be two radically different systems. So, it wouldn't be like two wolves. The Buddha sometimes gives his "Lion's Roar," so maybe it's the difference between a lion and a hyena within us. I was trying to think of something a little nicer because lions are carnivorous. I was thinking about maybe a whale—the biggest mammal—and a hyena. These two different kinds of animals within us, and we usually don't give prominence to our whale. 

Buddhism has these two different forces, and what is fascinating to me is the characterization of these two different processes inside of us that the Buddha gives. It speaks to how they are very different from each other. One of them the Buddha described as being artificial. He used the word "constructed," meaning it is clearly constructed by the mind in a way that's artificial; it is not part of the natural system of things. 

We have the same kind of division in popular English when we talk about something that's been made artificially, like artificial sugar versus a natural product, or synthetic plastics and synthetic clothes versus something that's naturally made, like cotton clothes. We distinguish between things that don't exist in nature on their own, but which are products of the human mind that have been created and invented. You could argue that is natural as well, but there is still a distinction between what is human-made and has a source independent of what can be found on its own in the natural world.

The Buddha plays up that distinction. He uses the word *sankhāra*[^1], which means "constructed." But the idea of being constructed is that it's constructed in a way that is unnatural; it's a human-made invention that is just put together. In the ancient world, the word *sankhāra* could mean cooking soup or preparing a meal. It could also refer to the construction of a Brahmanical ritual. In contrasting himself to the Brahmans, the Buddha was focusing not on rituals that are built by humans, but on a very different process. 

The image that's used in Tibetan thangkas—Buddhist paintings—for *sankhāra* is a potter making a pot. It always seemed like a very nice image, but here we have something that's humanly made, something fragile. That is the image of *sankhāra*. Being humanly made is the important distinction here in the teachings of the Buddha. One of the images used for becoming fully awakened is broken pottery shards resting at the bottom of a very clear lake. The clear lake represents the enlightened mind, enlightened awareness. Somehow, with enlightenment, the human-constructed categories, beliefs, and conceits that we can live by have been shattered, and the pottery shards lay there peacefully on the bottom of the lake.

Some of you know a very famous verse attributed to the Buddha at the point of his enlightenment, saying: "House builder, you have been seen. Your rafters have been shattered and destroyed, and I have attained the destruction of the sankhāras." It is the destruction of the constructs, the destruction of what's been constructed. It is not pointing to something which is unnatural in us; it is pointing to something which is an artifice, a creation that is unnecessary. 

Some of you might go along with the idea that conceit, for example, has an artificiality to it. It's something constructed and made up; it's oppressive and problematic. You could certainly make the argument that it's natural—where else does it come from but the natural world? Everything is natural, right? But the distinction is between an artifice made by humans versus what comes from the natural world.

So, what is it that is part of the natural world, that is this other system the Buddha is talking about? For that, he uses very natural metaphors to describe it. One fascinating metaphor is a description of a hen that has a whole bunch of eggs that she is sitting on and incubating. If she keeps them warm, sits on them, and incubates them, then those healthy eggs will certainly hatch. They will peck their way out of the shell soon enough. The Buddha says even if the hen does not want them to hatch, they will hatch. 

There is this idea that there is a natural process that doesn't require even the hen's desire, mental wishes, or constructs. It is just happening on its own. He said in the same way, people who practice well in the Dharma don't even have to want to be enlightened—they will be. They will break through the shell that keeps us in. That is a remarkable teaching about this practice: that it is a natural process, like you're incubating something. 

The Buddha says the same thing in a number of places. He says that if you are living in harmony with or living fully out of the Eightfold Path, then even if you don't want to be enlightened, you will become enlightened. It is a powerful message that there's something inside of us, a natural process that is set in motion by certain incubating, supportive conditions. It is not something we have to huff and puff to get, but something we nourish. We are nurturing our nature to allow something to grow, develop, and unfold. 

The Buddha uses a lot of words from the natural world to describe this process of Buddhist practice. He talks about it being a process of growth and development. It is sometimes translated as cultivating, and I think of it like cultivating a plant. You don't engineer the plant, you don't tug on it so it grows faster. You nourish it, nurture it, and protect it so the natural process of the plant can grow. The natural process that leads to awakening comes to fruition; someone who is enlightened has attained the fruit. But in order to have a fruit grow, the tree has to be protected, supported, and allowed to grow.

There was that egg analogy, and one of the most common reference points the Buddha uses for the kind of care, attention, and inner life we need to have to bring about full awakening is a word in Pali and Sanskrit which is *yoni*[^2]. Exactly what *yoni* means is a little bit variable, but in its most literal meaning for humans, it means the womb. It could also mean the fundamental source for something. The Pali-English Dictionary gives "matrix" as one of its meanings. Matrix comes from the Latin word for mother, and a matrix is a place that allows things to develop and grow. 

I think a womb is one of the most primary representations of what is a natural process that we're a part of as human beings. What could be more natural than producing and growing children within? A person might desire children and intend to have them, but once you're pregnant, you let this natural process unfold. You have to support it, nourish it, and protect that natural process the best you can. It is a completely natural process that is not part of human artifice and engineering.

So, the phrase that is very important in the Buddha's teachings is *yonisomanasikāra*[^3]. *Manasikāra* means the activities of the intellect or mental activities. It signifies that our inner mental life, our inner spiritual life, comes from *yoniso*—from the womb, from a deep source within.

The *sankhāras*, these mental formations and constructs that the Buddha wants to shatter and end, are products of clinging in the mind. The mind becomes free of clinging when the constructs are shattered. That doesn't mean that we stop thinking, working, and having concepts we live by, but we're no longer living by the artifice and artificiality that the mind can create. Instead, the source where our life comes from is not the clinging of the mind, but rather the supportive flow of qualities that come from this deep source within. 

This is why the analogy of the two wolves doesn't quite work for Buddhism. Wolves are two equal things, as opposed to the attachments of the mind versus the natural growth that can come from a womb-like source within. Sometimes I've tried calling this the gestational forces within us, because of the idea that we're gestating something, incubating something in practice. We're allowing something to unfold and to move through us, as opposed to being the engineer of our practice.

Not a few people have entered practice full of conceit: "I'm going to be the first one on my block to be enlightened. I'm going to go to this retreat, I'm going to huff and puff. I'm capable, I'm smart, I'm energetic, I've been successful in whatever I do in my life. I have a PhD from Stanford and I can certainly do this." And boom, off they go. Generally, it's understood that if you have that kind of attitude, it will take you about ten times longer to get enlightened, partly because you're not allowing for this natural incubation to happen. You're not making room and space for this natural growth that needs to occur. What we do as practitioners—and it can take a lot of effort to practice—is provide the nurturing, supportive conditions for this natural process to unfold. We are nurturing nature.

How do we do this? There are many ways of doing it, but I want to offer you the middle way. One technique is the practice of doing nothing—doing nothing while literally or metaphorically sitting in meditation in an upright, still posture. It can be done in other postures, like lying down, but sitting is clearly a posture of dignity, nobility, uprightness, and balance. In Zen practice, they put a lot of care into sitting in a really good upright posture that sometimes takes a lot of physical effort to keep going and stay alert.

You stay there, and the practice is to have this middle way posture and not move. Initially, all the impatience and reactivity that's expressed through the body moving is not expressed. You have an itch, and you're not supposed to scratch yourself. I mean, you're allowed to if you want to; no one is preventing you in our tradition. In Zen, you're kind of prevented. [Laughter] But we don't give in to the reactive impulses. You feel impatient and you want to look at your phone, thinking, "It's been five minutes, I must have gotten a new text message." What could be wrong with checking my text? What's wrong is that checking the text is reinforcing the reactivity of the mind.

These *sankhāras* belong to the world of reactivity, and the world of reactivity belongs to this world of attachments and clinging. This is a place in the mind that is artificial or superficial; it doesn't really come from the depths. So we sit there and we don't give in to the impulse to check the phone. Even if our body feels uncomfortable, we don't give in to reacting and moving, but learn to stay still in the discomfort. 

A number of things happen when we don't move and sit still. Some of the layers of tension we carry in our body, which arise from the reactivity in the mind—this world of *sankhāras*—contribute to physical tension. As we're sitting and not moving, some of the daily tension that's built up begins to relax. For some people, it's the shoulders. To this day, sometimes when I sit down to meditate, my shoulders give way a little bit and settle. My stomach will relax a little bit just sitting there. As I keep sitting in meditation, my breathing begins to change. Being busy running around doing things affects my breathing, so then my breathing begins to relax. 

This relaxing begins to settle the reactive, constructing force in the mind. All the tension you carry in your body—don't blame the world for it, don't blame others for it, don't blame your boss. All the tension you have is a product of your own mind. The conditions for your tension might definitely be out there, and sometimes it's appropriate to address those conditions, but in Buddhism, the primary understanding of how tension builds up inside of us goes through these constructive, reactive qualities of the mind that are based on clinging.

We sit in this middle way, sit still, and start seeing our reactivity. We don't give in to it, and some degree of relaxing and settling occurs. As we do this, we also start seeing, sooner or later, that we have a reactive mind. We're sitting quietly, minding our own business, and we start feeling impatient. The meditation is not over, so the logical thing to do is to be angry at the bell ringer. "It can't be this long, so I'll look at my watch. No, I'm not supposed to look at my watch, don't give in to the reactivity. I'll stare at the bell ringer. No, I'm not supposed to do that, I'm supposed to stay still."

Then we see what the mind is doing. "Oh, I'm starting to write letters to the president of IMC. The sittings are too long. If this Buddhism is really up to snuff, like the Calm app, ten minutes should be enough. This thirty-five minutes for Sunday morning is old-fashioned." You start seeing the mind writing letters and reacting, reciting the letters with exclamation points. You see that the mind is angry, upset, and gets carried away in these trains of thought. 

That is not the middle way. The middle way is to stay still in the mind. The next time you start writing these letters, you say, "No, let's not get involved in that activation of the mind." Lo and behold, over time you start seeing more and more how the mind gets caught in thoughts, reactivity, and emotions. You learn the difference between being involved in those and staying on the middle path. The mind begins to stay still, but it's not a frozen stillness. It's the stillness of a hen sitting on her eggs. It's the nurturing stillness that allows for something that needs supportive conditions to come forth and grow.

Something inside of us wants to be born. The Dharma that is in you wants to be born. The path to liberation wants to be born. What wants to be born are these beautiful qualities that arise out of non-clinging. In Buddhism, there are seven qualities it most emphasizes that are supported by this *yonisomanasikāra*—this inner life that arises out of this deep, profound source within. 

These are the Seven Factors of Awakening[^4]. What is interesting about these is that as they come out of the womb, they are not practices we do, but qualities that flower inside of us and come to fruition. 

First is mindfulness. In popular society these days, mindfulness is a technique. In Buddhism, mindfulness is not a technique; it is more like a state that we become endowed with, that grows and develops. 

Second is investigation. There is no "investigating" going on; it's a natural capacity to start seeing what is happening clearly when the reactive mind has gotten still. 

Third is energy or engagement. It is beautiful to feel that in the stillness of this middle way of sitting upright and being present, there is a certain vitality and animation in being really embodied. This is not a passive thing. The animation comes from an inner source that keeps us engaged. It is not the mind applying effort, but rather we are receiving this animation from inside that is flowing. It is beautiful to feel the flow of being alive and energized in meditation. The intelligence of this effort flows into what is wholesome, healthy, and nourishing, and stays away from what is unhealthy and reactive. 

Fourth is joy. Joy is not a technique; it is a byproduct of what wants to be born coming out of this. It is part of the gestational forces we have inside. 

Fifth is tranquility. A deep, abiding feeling of oceanic tranquility can come. 

Sixth is *samādhi*[^5] or concentration. This is an area where there is a lot of reactivity, constructing, and trying to make it happen. But again, *samādhi* is not something we construct and make happen. We create the nurturing conditions that allow for this deep stability and deep unification of mind to come together. 

Seventh is equanimity[^6]. It is a sweet, freeing, profound sense of equanimity that feels like a phenomenal gift. Equanimity is a mind that is non-reactive. The reactivity of the mind has stopped, but our life force is fully alive and flowing. It feels so good to have this flowing presence without the static of reactivity in the mind.

In the teachings of the Buddha, there are these two different systems or processes within us. One is synthetic—constructed, put together. The other is natural, which is gestational. What we are trying to do in Buddhist practice is support the gestational processes, the natural processes that exist inside of us. We see a phenomenal celebration of a natural process that exists in all of us, that often gets submerged, cut out, or rejected when we are too much in the mind, in our constructs, beliefs, and reactivity. 

When we are able to calm down the reactivity enough, we start feeling the warmth, the flow, and the generosity that can flow from the inside out. In a certain analogy, the Buddha likens it to an underwater spring, where water flows up inside the spring and spreads out in a nourishing way throughout the lake. In the same way, this nourishing flow can happen. 

For people who have never practiced, the goal is generally to live in that middle way, to follow the middle path of being still enough that we are not giving in to our reactive forces, so they have a chance to relax and we have a chance to see them clearly. In seeing them clearly, especially those of the mind, we learn not to feed them because we were nourishing the wrong thing. Our capacity to nourish, support, and feed is one of the primary wealths that we have. The richness of human life is our human capacity for attention. What we bring attention to and how we bring attention is where we have the opportunity to give birth to what is most healthy.

What is it in you that wants to be born? Not what is in you that you want to acquire or accomplish in the world. Deep inside, in the deepest place you have, what wants to be born? How would you know that? How would you have discovered that? One of the ways is to become quiet and still enough to still the reactive mind. When there is enough stilling and attention, I think you will start feeling or sensing that yes, in fact, something wants to be born. You then nourish it, support it, and make room for it. 

You cannot do this if you are too busy. If you are running around trying to accomplish all the things that are possible to accomplish in Silicon Valley, you probably won't have the room and time that is needed for such a deeper wellspring to come forth. In the Buddhist tradition, part of that deeper wellspring of what wants to come forth is liberation. Freedom from these reactivities, freedom from constructs, freedom from attachment—it's almost a biological imperative that exists within us. Liberation wants to be born.

Two forces within us: which will you feed? Whichever one you feed will win, but I think the world loses if reactivity wins. Maybe you will become a billionaire with your reactive mind, but the world will lose because the world benefits when the best inner qualities of who we are have a chance to flower and grow. Then we become a gift to the world, which is one of the greatest things to do in human life.

In this way, this naturalistic quality of the early Buddhist teachings is nature-affirming. It is affirming something very powerful and meaningful in our life that sometimes we don't understand in Buddhism. If teachers like me talk too much about letting go, just reinterpret it as being "let go" so this natural process can flower in you.

Thank you. We have about five or six minutes if any of you would like to have questions, comments, or clarification.

## Q&A

**Questioner:** Thank you, it was very enlightening. A practical question I have: you mentioned resisting the desire to look at the watch or phone. Is it better to not bring a device at all, or is it better to resist the desire?

**Gil Fronsdal:** Without any other context, the generic answer is don't bring the watch. But I prefer the contextual answer: what would be most interesting and useful for you? If you're so compulsive that you can't even meditate because you're always looking at your watch, maybe leave it behind for a while until you've settled down enough that keeping it on is not an issue. 

Or, maybe it's an issue, but you can say, "I need to deal with my reactivity. This is an opportunity. I'm definitely going to wear my watch, but I'm not going to look at it. Even if I have to break out in a sweat, hold on to my knees, or cross my arms, I'm not going to look at it because I want to get to the bottom of it." Whatever is useful for you, whatever helps you find your way.

**Questioner:** I am very curious about the middle path. One of the ways I understand something more deeply is to understand what's around it. Where there's a middle path, there's usually a high and a low, or a left and a right. Can you describe the other two? That will help me understand how to maintain the middle path.

**Gil Fronsdal:** That's a very good question. The language of the middle way is used in so many different ways for so many different contrasts. Today, I was using it to describe the difference between being reactive and doing absolutely nothing—giving up or collapsing into the situation. Some people just give up and spend the day in bed. It's a middle way of not doing anything conventionally, but in an unconventional way, you're staying alert, present, and still. It means we are not actively going out to do something, but we are also not collapsing.

This is fascinating and very helpful to do. For example, if there is a lot of sadness or grief, we don't want to block or resist the sadness, but we also don't want to collapse in it. We sit upright and just let the tears flow without going, "Oh no, poor me." You don't resist it, block it, or judge the sadness. You let it flow while staying present. The advantage of that is that this deeper natural process that can support or process our sadness has a chance. If we collapse to it, we are actually reinforcing the reactivity around it, which can be a big component of some people's sadness and grief that we don't see.

In the most classic idea in Buddhism, the middle way is between pursuing sensual desires and sensual denial, or asceticism. Another middle way that Buddhism posits is between the idea that anything really exists and the idea that nothing really exists. That's a little bit more philosophical, but that's also profound.

**Questioner:** What's the point? Is it reacting to your emotions versus self-soothing as an act of self-compassion?

**Gil Fronsdal:** Giving these kinds of talks lends itself to a certain reductionism; I can't really explain everything, so I appreciate your question a lot. Sometimes reactivity is wise. Sometimes we react in a way to care for our worse reactivity. Maybe our anger is so strong and we feel so challenged by it, and we want it to go away. We don't reject it; we bring a soothing compassion to it. That compassion may be as close to being this gestational force within us, but we are initiating it in a reactive way because we really don't want to be angry. If it's successful, maybe the anger calms down. We are using a wiser reactivity to address a reactivity which is worse.

We don't want to be too black and white or absolute between these two different worlds, saying that one is all bad and one is all good. Sometimes reactivity can support us from settling into stronger reactivity. But when is bringing compassion to the anger not a reactivity but a source of wisdom? That's a good question. There doesn't have to be any reactivity to it. Some deeper knowing inside knows to bring this compassion and hold it kindly, nurturingly, like a mother would hold an angry little child—just love and care. 

How do you know the difference between the two? Over time, you start being able to identify the difference. One of the differences is that reactivity always has some quality of tension with it, whereas the nurturing qualities have no tension with them. But to be able to identify that in subtle ways takes a lot of practice and sensitivity. 

What do you think of my answer?

**Questioner:** What I heard is that there's a difference between reacting and responding to something. I've learned sometimes to just let go of that reaction and allow myself to despair, and it makes it last for a much shorter period of time. I can almost get tired of it or laugh at myself for it, and then it disappears. The more I fight it, it does not work very nice. So, a very dramatic person I am, I need that. [Laughter]

**Gil Fronsdal:** Great, lovely. Thank you all. I think it's wonderful that people are coming together in such a community. Say hello to someone near you, and even if it's your first time here, you can welcome them. Thank you for being here.

---

[^1]: **Sankhāra:** A Pali word often translated as "formations," "constructs," or "fabrications." It refers to things that are put together or constructed by the mind.
[^2]: **Yoni:** A Pali and Sanskrit word that literally means "womb," "origin," or "source."
[^3]: **Yonisomanasikāra:** Often translated as "wise attention" or "careful attention." It combines *yoni* (womb, origin) and *manasikāra* (attention or mental activity), signifying attention that goes to the root or source of things.
[^4]: **Seven Factors of Awakening:** In Buddhism, these are seven qualities cultivated on the path to enlightenment: mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, tranquility, concentration (*samādhi*), and equanimity.
[^5]: **Samādhi:** A Pali word meaning concentration, stillness, or unification of the mind.
[^6]: **Equanimity:** A balanced and non-reactive state of mind that remains steady amidst the fluctuations of experience.