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audiodharma:
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    speakers:
    - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal
      speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1
    talk_start_time_seconds: 0
    title: 'Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (17) Expansiveness of Non-Clinging.'
    url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/20060
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location_city: Redwood City, CA
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  title: 'Guided Meditation: Spaciousness; Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (17) Expansiveness
    of Non-Clinging.'
  upload_date: '2024-03-26'
  uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center
  uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter
youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufwkecr-DhY
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# Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (17) Expansiveness of Non-Clinging. - [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.*


## Guided Meditation

Hello everyone and welcome. So, this week's theme is recognizing the aftereffects or the experiential benefits of letting go, of release, of non-clinging. And one of them is related to an aspect of mindfulness that sometimes I like to emphasize: that being mindful is, when we're mindful of something, we're giving room for that thing, making space for it, giving room to it.

Maybe we've all had some experience of being in a very crowded place where we felt kind of hemmed in, and then we go to some place where we feel like we have lots of room. Sometimes we call it having breathing room, even. And then sometimes, within lots of room, we can just relax and something inside of us settles. Because when we're claustrophobic, when things are kind of pressing against us, it's more difficult to relax.

So part of mindfulness is to make room, give breathing room to our breathing, to our sense experiences in our body, to our emotions, and even to thinking—though that's a little bit more tricky. To give room for it is to not just give room for it to continue on kind of spinning out, but making room so that we're not fueling it anymore, we're not squeezing it out. If we keep our foot on the gas pedal, then the car will go faster and faster. But if we back off and make room for the pedal, our foot is no longer on the pedal, and then the car slows down. So it's like that with thinking. We give room to it so that we're not perpetuating, not fueling it anymore.

So, to assume a meditation posture. There is a way of sometimes using a posture that makes us feel bigger. For those sitting upright, it's to sit a little bit more upright. To sit a little bit more, maybe with the chest expansive. Not pushing it outwards, but letting it—maybe by pulling in the spine between the shoulder blades, the chest comes out a little bit. Or if you are sitting with a backrest, sometimes putting a little pillow or something between the shoulder blades so that again, you get the same effect, that something's being pushed out. People who meditate in bed maybe can do something a little bit similar. Maybe there's something gentle that can be put between the shoulder blades that allows the chest to expand a little more. And also what we do with the arms. That's an advantage sometimes of meditating laying down, is we can kind of open our hands upwards, have our hands to the side sometimes and upwards, and shoulders a little bit rolling back. And it creates a little more sense of bigness.

So we're beginning to feel our way into a sense of making space, having lots of room for what we're going to be with. We have very little room when we react to things and when we are bothered by things.

So to gently close the eyes and take some long, deep breaths. With the in-breath, feeling how the body expands, the torso expands in some way, the rib cage expands, that we, in a sense, become bigger.

That sense of growing bigger on the in-breath can correct some fixed idea that limits us, that keeps us kind of shrunk or pulled in. Feeling the lifting and expanding of the rib cage. And then keeping some of that sense of bigness or largeness, and keeping it there as you exhale. Relax, soften. It isn't that the body is kept large, expanded with the exhale, but the inner sensibility, the sense of our size, can stay big.

And letting the breathing return to normal. And still, as you breathe in, to feel the now smaller movements of expansion in the chest, in the rib cage, maybe in the belly, maybe much more subtly in the back rib cage. And in the sensations of the rib cage expanding, maybe feeling there's lots of room for the breathing to occur. The breathing, all the breathing that's happening inside of the rib cage, has room. The sensations of expansion and movement, filling, contraction, letting go, emptying.

Then to continue with this settling process. To feel the tensions you might have in your face, around the forehead, the eyes, the cheeks, the mouth, if you have them there. And as you breathe, imagine that you're making lots of room for those sensations to be there. They're allowed to be there spaciously, expansively. And then as you exhale, to let whatever tension you have in your face relax. Relax outward into that space.

And then doing the same for the shoulders. If you're aware of any tension in your shoulders, first see if you can readjust the position of your hands, your arms, to ease up a little bit of that tension. And then as you breathe in, to make room for whatever sensations and feelings are in your shoulders. An expansive space, a spacious sense of there's room for those sensations to be themselves, free of our judgments and reactions. And then on the exhale, to relax and soften the shoulders, so the tension expands into the space around them, or dissolves into the space.

And then on the inhale, to feel any tension or agitation, pressure in the thinking mind. With the inhale, imagining lots of space. There's room for your mind to be tense, agitated; it's okay. The inhale reminds you to have a wider view of the space around the tension, giving room. And then to relax the thinking mind, soften the thinking mind with the exhale. So the tensions, agitations dissolve, evaporate into the space around them.

And then to settle into the body experience of breathing. Giving room, space for the sensations of breathing as you breathe in. Releasing, letting go as you exhale, so that all things expand, relax outward into the space around you.

[Silence]

Whatever is happening for you now, recognize it as such, making room for it to be there. Taking the foot off the gas pedal, making space so we can relax, dissolve outward into the space around it.

[Silence]

And then as we come to the end of this sitting, to imagine all the space that's around you, beyond the edges of your body. That there is more space to hold all things—your thoughts, your feelings, your body—in the spaciousness of the mind, that's as spacious, as expansive and open as the space around you. And that any movement of tension, of tightening up, of grasping on, is a narrowing down, a closing in. It can even be claustrophobic sometimes when there's lots of thoughts and feelings we're caught up in. And letting this simple awareness of all things—let that awareness be broad and wide, spacious. So there's room to be aware of other people in that space.

We give other people lots of room to be who they are, as long as they don't threaten us, or allow them to be in the spacious quality of the heart, where it's a gift to be present for others and making room for them to be just as they are. They don't have to contend with our judgments, our agendas, our preferences. They can just be there as they are.

And in that spaciousness, let there be a channel, room for goodwill. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may my presence, my attention, make room for that possibility.

Thank you.

## [Dharmette: Intro to Mindfulness Pt 2 (17) Expansiveness of Non-Clinging.](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/20060)

Hello everyone and welcome. I feel delighted and have the good fortune, for this theme this week, to talk about the symptoms of letting go. So certainly, we can become aware of how we cling and hold on tight and close down, and then there's opening up. And the release of clinging, release itself, is part of the possibility, the potential of this Buddhist practice of mindfulness. It is more than just to relax, but to really find a sense of freedom through it.

One of the very profound little sayings that comes from the Buddha, kind of a summation of what's most important, he said: "Nothing whatsoever is worth clinging to." He didn't say that nothing is worthwhile at all. He said nothing is worth clinging to—the extra that we do, the holding on, the resisting, the pushing away, that tightening up. And with enough clinging, enough things we're attached to, preoccupied with, caught up in, the mind, the heart, our very life can feel claustrophobic. We can feel there's just too much going on, just too much swirling around. Sometimes it's so much that we can't get our bearing; we don't even know what to do.

And I've asked people sometimes to notice the difference between being caught up in thought, and then when they notice that they're in their thinking, and then they switch to being mindful of it: "This is what it's like to be thinking." What's the difference between those two states, lost in thought, and open and aware to what thinking is happening? And some people report back that they feel really small, closed in when they're caught up in thoughts, that something almost goes dark, things become obscure. But when there's this awareness of it, the mindfulness of it, there's an opening. There's a feeling of clarity and brightness that happens in the mind, in our sense of being.

And this points to how one of the symptoms of non-clinging is space, is room, is a sense of expansiveness. Sometimes the mind can feel very expansive, sometimes a sense of awareness can feel expansive. Sometimes there can feel like as if there's lots of room in our body, like there's space, lots of space for whatever arises can just be there in this ocean of space, ocean of awareness. And so an expansive state of being, expansive state of awareness, expansive state of mind, it is one of the symptoms, the results of non-clinging, letting go, release, the kind of spiritual freedom that the Buddha emphasized.

And so we can feel that, we can begin tuning into it. And the reason for that, to notice the symptoms of letting go, symptoms of relaxing, is that it reinforces our appreciation of that, allows us to notice it more often and how it's there when we normally would have overlooked it. We would have not paid attention to it, because the expansive state of being has no—I don't know—has no monetary value. You can't buy it. It's not about having some experience, it's not about our opinions, it's not about getting what we want, or it's not about making ourselves safe in conventional ways. But still, people would say it's priceless, it's invaluable. Because in that great spaciousness of mind, spaciousness of heart, it makes room for some of the most beautiful parts of who we are as a human being to flow. It makes room for some of our most beautiful connections with other people to flow. And when we lock down, get tight, and caught up in compulsions and addictions, something closes down, something narrows, something gets lost in that process.

So to notice the spaciousness, to notice a sense of expansiveness, to make room for our experience. And sometimes I've used that as a kind of orientation for my practice, the question: "How can I make room for this?" And sometimes I wondered, "Really? This too?" And then the mind says, "Yes, this too." The practice mind says, "Yes, this too. Make room for it." And why? One of the reasons to make room for everything, make space for everything, to kind of hold it in the spacious mind, is that the alternative is not good for us. The alternative makes the whole situation worse. The alternative of closing down, locking in, resisting, tightening up, getting narrow, shrinking, is a form of suffering; it is a form of diminishing ourselves. And so it's not the better alternative. But being expansive, open, spacious with everything, making room for whatever is happening, is just a fantastic thing to tune into and notice and appreciate.

It can come with challenges. Some of the challenges are that it can be frightening, that there's maybe a false sense of being protected if we tighten up and cling and resist and hold back. But we're not really doing ourselves a favor. And so sometimes we have to deal with, when we're more expansive and open, it can feel like we're now more vulnerable. It can feel like now there's nothing protecting us. But there was nothing really protecting us before if we're locked up, tense, and have armor on; we're actually harming ourselves. And to open up and be afraid is one of the reasons why it's hard to do this. But the art of it is to learn how to be open and not let the ordinary threats around us, that normally we close down to, let them affect us, to let them touch something for us. To learn how not to react to them. It's our reaction to some of the things that are threatening—things people say and do, that's independent of any physical harm—that people say things to us, then something inside of us locks up, resists, feels challenged, feels threatened, feels hurt. And sometimes that's reasonable, but sometimes it's extra; it's not really needed. And the danger that maybe we think we're protecting ourselves from—external danger—what we really want to do is try to protect ourselves from the inner danger of shutting down, closing up, getting tight.

So this idea of the expansiveness of non-clinging has its challenges. But it's a wonderful challenge to have, to explore and navigate. This new—it's almost like a new territory, learning a new language, and coming into a new city and learning the territory. It takes a while to learn how to navigate in it, but it's really worth it.

So one of the signposts for freedom, for release, for non-clinging, non-grasping, is a sense of expansiveness. Sometimes people call it even a "big mind," since the mind gets big, or "big heart," the heart feels big. Our presence feels kind of bigger. And to appreciate that, to explore it, to include it, and not worry that it might be a sign of conceit. One of the reasons not to be expansive is some people are afraid: "If I do that, then I'm too big, I take up too much space for people, and it's a sign of conceit or being domineering." Again, it doesn't have to be. People won't feel us as being assertive; they might feel us as being now safer to be with, more available, friendlier, kinder.

So, if we let go a little, we can maybe feel a little expansiveness. We let go more, we feel more expansiveness. Let go a lot, the sense of expansiveness can be quite spacious, quite expansive, maybe almost infinite in feeling.

So as you go through today, you might see what it's like to give more room to your experience. To whatever is happening, can you make room for it? Can you make more space for it? Can you allow it to be there in an expansive receptivity or an expansive openness? And then navigate what happens as a result. Find your way with it. Learn to be wise in that space of an expansive mind, expansive heart. And appreciate, don't have a high bar for what expansiveness means. It can just be a little bit more than how you normally are. Or maybe it's times when you feel most contracted, that that's maybe the most interesting time to experiment: "Given this, can I make room for being contracted? Can I make room for this too?"

So thank you very much. And I hope, in the process of this, that this world of ours, our shared world, begins to feel like there's lots of room and lots of space for us to be alive in, to be free in, and to be ourselves in. 

Thank you.