---
ai_generation_date: '2026-09-08'
ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview
audiodharma:
  talks:
    - date: '2020-07-19'
      mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/11742/20200719-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-be_see_free_we_10_of_10_insight_into_not_self.mp3
      speakers:
        - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal
          speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1
      talk_start_time_seconds: 0
      title: Be, See, Free, We (10 of 10) insight Into Not-Self
      url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11742
      video_unavailable: false
location_city: Redwood City, CA
video_unavailable: false
youtube:
  id: fODF6RAo3mU
  imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04'
  title: Be, See, Free, We (9 of 10) Strength and Confidence
  upload_date: null
  uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center
  uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter
youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fODF6RAo3mU
---

# Be, See, Free, We (10 of 10) insight Into Not-Self - [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._

## [Be, See, Free, We (10 of 10) insight Into Not-Self](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11742)

Greetings. For this Sunday morning sitting, I'd like to very briefly tell you of a sutta[^1], an ancient teaching from the Middle Length Discourses, where someone is recounting a dream they had to the Buddha, and the Buddha interprets it. The dream is that a person comes across an anthill, and someone else tells them they should dig into it. As they dig into the anthill, they find different objects and pull them out. The guide—the person who is giving instructions—keeps saying, "Throw that away. Throw that away and keep digging." Finally, at the bottom of the anthill, deep down in the ground, the person digs up a nāga[^2], a big, powerful serpent. The guide says, "Don't throw that away. Keep that, let that be."

The person tells this to the Buddha, and the Buddha interprets the dream. He says that the anthill is the person, because maybe we're made up of all kinds of composite pieces kind of buzzing around. All the different things that are thrown away are things that cause difficulties for human beings. Ignorance—throw it away. Anger—throw it away. The hindrances[^3]—throw it away. Doubt—throw it away. It goes progressively down through the temptations of the world—throw away—until they come to the nāga. The Buddha says, "Yes, the nāga, the great serpent, represents the person who has let go of all their attachments."

Here we have this very powerful symbol: a serpent, a powerful nāga, representing the person who has let go of all their attachments. That is what waits for us, what's inside of us. If we go down, down into ourselves, there is something very powerful and strong. The letting go that the Buddha teaches is not meant to leave us with nothing. It leaves us with no attachments, but it also leaves us with a certain strength, a power, a confidence, an assurance. A deep kind of assurance that allows a person to be in the world with confidence.

## Guided Meditation

And so, as we begin this sitting, I'd like to request of you, if possible, that you call upon a deep assurance within. That you call upon a strength—maybe even a power within. Not a power over anyone, or maybe not even a power to do certain things, but the power to sit confidently, with assurance that you have a right to be here, and to be here upright, confident, and strong.

For those of us in California, maybe sit with the straightness and uprightness—even if you're laying down in meditation, to have the metaphoric uprightness and strength—of a great, tall redwood tree. Where you're deeply rooted, with broad, wide roots that keep you connected to the ground. And clearly, you are here.

Perhaps take a few moments to really feel yourself here through your body. Really feel the contact of the weight of your body against the chair, your cushion, the floor, or your bed. You might even lean forward gently just a little bit, so you feel a little bit more of the push of your feet or your knees against the floor. Or you could slowly sway back and forth just a little bit, so you feel more connected with your sitting bones against your chair or your cushion. Really feel that contact in a firm and good way.

And then letting yourself sit still. But not the stillness of hiding or the stillness of being silenced. Rather, a stillness of strength and uprightness that you can maybe feel in your body. That there's a definitiveness, an emphaticness to being here. It is here, at this moment, in this time. To sit with the strength of a serpent, the strength of a redwood tree, the strength of wide, firm mountains. To sit like a mountain.

Perhaps you can see if you can reach deep inside of yourself to see if you can touch or feel a place of stability, of some kind of well-being, some kind of rightness, some kind of place of strength. And it may be with this reference that you welcome the experience of breathing.

First, familiarize yourself with how it feels to experience breathing now. Then maybe you can make some subtle adjustments to your breathing, so breathing is a little bit easier for you. Maybe releasing a little bit in the belly as you breathe. Maybe a release in the solar plexus or diaphragm area. As you relax the belly, perhaps it feels more easeful to breathe with the movements there than to feel the upper chest expand and contract. If it is supportive for you, maybe you can adjust your breathing to make it slightly longer or slightly shorter. Slightly deeper or slightly shallower breathing. Whatever feels nice for you.

In the Pali language, the word for assurance[^4] literally means to breathe easily. To have an assurance which is not tense or contracting, an assurance that allows us to relax willingly into this present moment.

If many of our thoughts are thoughts of anxiety and arise out of feelings of inadequacy, perhaps for this sitting you can be reassured that you are quite adequate. That for these few minutes, you can allow the fear to recede, and in the foreground, to sit, and breathe, and be alive, with a quiet, peaceful assurance. Letting that which is strong within you, stable within you, support you in the simplicity of being here. Breathing, feeling, sensing. Here.

To sit here reassured that you have greater personal strength, inner strength, than you realize. It's appropriate and okay for you to sit strong, assured, confident at these moments. These minutes of just sitting, breathing. These next minutes are your minutes to be embodied, to be grounded, to really be here. As if you count. As if you're a great nāga.

As we come to the end of the sitting, imagine yourself as strong and stable, with a kind of self-reassurance. An assurance not easily threatened, not easily confused. And that you go into the world, where there's so much suffering, with a heart of kindness, a heart that cares, and the wisdom to know when you can help and when you shouldn't. When it works for you to offer a helping hand and when it doesn't, you're assured that it's okay, it's appropriate to offer what you can and not what you can't.

And so you go into the world with your strength, your reassurance, your stability. And you feel confident in whatever feelings, whatever motivations you have to be of benefit for others. Coming out of meditation, the practice teaches you something about allowing and being present for your heart's wish that all beings be happy. Or if not all beings, that some beings—maybe some of the people you'll encounter today—may they be happy, may they be healthy, may they be free of oppression, may they be free of afflictions.

May it be that you are a person who makes a difference to improve their lives, or that you improve the lives of this world. May it be that the world is a better place today because you've been in it.

[Music]

## Dharma Talk

What all of you cannot see on these screens is that I'm sitting on what we call a teaching platform here at IMC[^5]. This teaching platform is maybe fourteen inches off the ground and made from wood, with four wood legs. This teaching platform was built by a man named Jim, who has now passed away. He was part of our community for many years, and one of his gifts to me and to people in our community was that he stuttered.

The way it was a gift was that he would talk, and when he talked, periodically he would start stuttering, and he would stop in the most relaxed and open way, as if there was no problem whatsoever. As if there was nothing wrong happening. And we all learned that there was nothing wrong happening; there was not a problem. It was just his way of being in the world, his way of talking, and we would all just wait. Or, wait isn't even the right word—we would just allow for it. We would stay silent, and then at some point he would complete his sentence.

His gift was that he seemed very relaxed, unapologetic. There wasn't anything that needed to be talked about or explained. He felt like he was confident in himself, he was a very confident man. Confident in himself, peaceful in himself, assured in himself, and he stuttered.

This idea of allowing ourselves to be who we are, with all the different ways that we are. There are many other ways in which people get self-conscious, and feel apologetic, or feel like there's somehow something wrong with them. Maybe it's not necessary. I've seen over the years that people who become mature in Buddhist practice have things that are a little bit unusual or unique to them, that in some places might be called problems. How they are, or some quality or aspect of who they are. And they seem to have a remarkable okayness with it, a remarkable ease with how they are. You get a sense it's kind of a gift to be around people for whom, maybe if you had that condition you would feel self-conscious and trip over yourself, but to be with someone who just doesn't seem to be self-conscious and seems to be at ease.

That's the kind of strength that I want to refer to today. It's not necessarily a strength that looks powerful, but it's a strength that allows us to be ourselves without apology, without comparing ourselves to others, without diminishing ourselves in any way, without limiting ourselves.

There are many ways in which we limit ourselves. I think maybe a nice example is if someone has practiced a musical instrument for a long time, and finally has a chance to perform their music in front of other people. Maybe it's a solo piece, and it's exquisite. When the person is really absorbed in the music, the audience disappears. The room they're in disappears, leaving just the music and them playing the music. It's so exquisite to feel that, and the person feels some kind of freedom when they play this way. So much of the world disappears in such a beautiful, wonderful way.

And then somehow in the middle of their music, someone tells them that their fly is down. "Hey, by the way, your fly is down." And now the person is self-conscious, and they're concerned what people think about them, and they need to be the musician who's well-dressed and takes care of themselves. All these ideas of self come into play. Now it's hard to be absorbed in the music. These ideas of self have constricted, or limited, or tripped up this absorption, this beautiful ability to play music.

I don't know if that's the best example, but there's lots of examples you can come up with of people who are doing something and there's a freedom in it. And as soon as they start getting self-conscious, or trying to define themselves, or trying to prove that they are a certain kind of person, they become limited.

I did that when I was in college. To my surprise, I started doing art in college, and somehow—I like to say I was tricked into it—I started doing art and drawing. I started taking art classes, drawing classes, and a painting class, and I really enjoyed it a lot. One day, I remember it very well, I was riding my bicycle and I said, "Oh, I'm an artist, and I define myself as an artist," in a way I hadn't before when I just did art. Amazingly enough, the day I decided I was an artist was the day I stopped doing art. There was something about doing art for the purpose of being an artist, for the sake of the identity, which was coming from a very different place within than just doing it out of a nice expression of who I was. And so this identity of an artist for me—not saying it's going to be for other people, but for me—was limiting, it tripped me up.

In Buddhism, we put a lot of emphasis on not-self[^6]. But the emphasis on not-self is not meant to diminish ourselves, but to allow us to play the music. To allow us to express ourselves without the limitations of definition. When definitions limit us, it doesn't have to be that way. Holding on to some particular aspect and saying, "This is who I really am," in a way that is limiting. To have this welling up from the inside of our strength, our confidence, to come from a place of power, is one of the things that Buddhist practice is cultivating and developing.

Now, for some people, being strong and being powerful in themselves is frightening. It feels like if I stand up, if I somehow make myself known and am strong, that I'll be batted down, because maybe sometimes people have been batted down. People do terrible things to each other. Or they're afraid of hurting people: "If I'm strong and confident, I might hurt someone, and I can't do that." And certainly people hurt each other. But meditation practice can be a place where we allow our strength and power to be there, but not in a way that's egotistical and self-centered. In a way that's actually very peaceful. Like my friend Jim who stuttered. He had a certain strength, a power of just being alive, pausing as he stuttered, and it was like an ease and relaxation was also a strength.

Now that I'm getting older, I look back at my life. I see my body changing in a variety of ways. My body is weaker than it used to be, and I remember how I was decades ago. I was stronger in some ways. I didn't know it back then, it was just part of who I was, and I was unselfconscious about it. But there was physical strength that I don't have now, and I didn't recognize it because it's just kind of part of the territory. We all have strength. You wouldn't be alive if there wasn't some energy coursing through you, some aliveness coursing through you that was holding you up, allowing you to breathe, allowing you to just be as you are always. Even as we get older, and weaker, and sicker, and all kinds of things happen, there is a strength that can still exist there: the Dharma strength.

Part of what we're cultivating in the Dharma is inner strength, inner confidence, inner assurance to carry us and let us be, so that we can really look deeply into this world. Insight into the inconstancy of experience, its changing nature—it's a whole different game to experience inconstancy, change, and impermanence when we do so with stability, strength, and confidence. It's a whole different thing if we encounter our suffering and we have a sense of well-being, assurance, or confidence.

It's a whole different context for understanding the Buddha's teachings on not-self. It's not really an issue of understanding; we have insight, we have a deep, penetrating perception of not-self. If that perception is buoyed or supported by confidence, strength, inner power, ease, and assurance, then we're not batted around by the idea of not-self. It doesn't feel like a diminishment to understand not-self. The self that Buddhism talks about, that particular way that Buddhists understand self, is a self that limits ourselves. It's conceit that limits ourselves. It's selfishness that limits ourselves. And to have the strength to break through that, to let the old skin of the snake, of the nāga, fall away.

Finally, I'll end with the word _nāga_. In Pali, it can mean a serpent, but it also can mean an elephant. The elephant is supposed to be a very big, strong animal in the forest, in the jungles. And so, this idea that the person without attachment becomes like an elephant. It's not really clear whether in this dream story it's a serpent, or an elephant, or some mythic being, but it's certainly something that's powerful.

Imagine that a very big fly lands on an ant. That's a really big deal for the ant. It's heavy for the ant. It's a big deal, the ant certainly notices that something that's bigger than it is riding on its back. It's a problem. That same fly lands on the back of an elephant. It's no big deal for the elephant. Maybe the elephant recognizes the fly is there, but the elephant doesn't care.

Do you want to go through the world as an ant, or do you want to go through the world as an elephant? One of the things that mindfulness is cultivating for us, as we really open up and recognize what's here, is to allow for this confidence and strength to be here. Confidence in the Dharma, confidence in the practice, confidence in our ability to practice, confidence in the value and importance of freedom, confidence that being attached and being caught in self is not useful. As we develop this confidence, in a sense, we become like an elephant. We still have flies that are buzzing around. We still have our fears, our concerns, our selfishnesses, and all these things. And maybe we stutter, but it's not a big deal. We will have learned how to be free of it.

There is a custom to refer to practitioners that practice together in a sangha[^7] as nāgas, or great serpents and dragons[^8]. I don't know if you like to be referred to that way, so if you don't like it, don't listen, but: dear serpents and dragons, may your strength and power support you as you sit and meditate, as you live this day.

Maybe this last day of the retreat, for those of you on the retreat, can really be a day where we feel reassured in some very strong, stable way. Reassured that just to be alive is enough. Thank you.

## Announcements

For those of you on YouTube, I'm looking here because that's where the YouTube screen is, so maybe it's a little bit confusing. I started a retreat on Thursday evening, and I folded the 7:00 AM talks in with the retreat. The theme that I chose this week was tied into the retreat itself.

Those of you who would like to come—some of you have already, but if you haven't—if you want to come to the final Dharma talk for the retreat, which will be on the teaching of not-self, it will be this afternoon at 2:30 PM. The last few days it was at 4:00 PM, but it'll be 2:30 PM today, and it's part of the ten-part series that I'm doing this week. They'll probably be packaged together at some point as a set. They have the title _Be, See, Free, We_. You can always listen to them or watch them on YouTube later.

Someone put up music notes there and piano notes, very nice, on the chat.

So I wish you well today. Oh, the other thing is that I'm taking a little vacation this coming week, so for the 7:00 AM sitting, one of the great teachers here at IMC, Diana Clark[^9], will fill in for me this coming week. She has a nice plan for the week, I think you'll be in good hands and you'll enjoy it. And I'll be back the following week. Thank you.

---

[^1]: **Sutta:** A Pali word meaning discourse or sermon, specifically those attributed to the Buddha or his close disciples.

[^2]: **Nāga:** A Pali and Sanskrit word referring to a mythical serpent or dragon-like being, often associated with water, power, and protection. In Buddhist texts, it is also used metaphorically to describe a great being, such as an arhat or the Buddha himself.

[^3]: **Hindrances:** In Buddhism, the five hindrances (_pañcanīvaraṇāni_) are mental factors that hinder progress in meditation and daily life: sensory desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, and doubt.

[^4]: **Assāsa:** The Pali word for comfort, consolation, or assurance, which literally shares roots with the word for breathing out or breathing easily.

[^5]: **IMC:** Insight Meditation Center, a meditation center in Redwood City, California, where Gil Fronsdal teaches.

[^6]: **Not-self (_Anattā_):** A central Buddhist concept stating that no permanent, unchanging self or essence can be found in any phenomenon.

[^7]: **Sangha:** The Buddhist community, particularly the community of monks and nuns, but also used more broadly to refer to the community of lay practitioners.

[^8]: **Corrections:** Original transcript said "in grading serpents and dragons", corrected to "great serpents and dragons" based on context.

[^9]: **Diana Clark:** A teacher and scholar at the Insight Meditation Center (IMC).