Guided Meditation: Goodwill to the Sense of Self; Dharmette: Love (36) Metta Samadhi 11

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Goodwill for Sense of Self; Love (36) Metta Samadhi 11. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 09, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Goodwill to the Sense of Self

Hello everyone, and welcome back here with the emphasis on the teachings on metta^[1] and metta samadhi^[2]. The wonderfulness of having something well up from within that is warm, tender, nourishing, nurturing, kind—an amazing human capacity. Maybe it's a mammalian capacity to care for others, care for oneself, to love in all the different varieties of love that there are. What a wonderful thing to stay close to it.

And so the samadhi of metta is to be immersed in this experience of love because the mind is not distracted by other things, because the mind is not preoccupied by anything. The mind is occupied in this whole engagement with goodwill, friendliness, and kindness. Not because of any other reason than it's a natural capacity that we can, from time to time, shower in, bathe in. And it's so good for us. It's so cleansing. It's so inspiring. It does so much good. Just as some people will actually take a physical shower every day, it is good every day to spend a little bit of time with our capacity to be showered with love, to be absorbed or immersed in it.

So for this week, to give a certain kind of grounding and strength to the practice of metta, I would like to emphasize the agent—the agent who practices metta, that part of us that gets organized, coordinated, that chooses to do this practice of metta. Even though Buddhism has its teachings about not-self^[3], we want to be very careful not to dismiss our sense of self, which is a completely natural thing that we're constructed as human beings to do. We have some sense of our agency, some sense of tracking our inner life, some sense of making choices, decisions, reflection, and contemplation.

This sense of self that we have should not be seen as an enemy, even when sometimes it's a burden. It comes with a weight. It comes with a tension. It creates tension; all kinds of challenging emotions arise out of the sense of self. But that doesn't mean that the sense of self is wrong. It's a normal human thing that can stop, can rest, can disappear from time to time. It's not fixed. It's not universal. It's not always there. And we can find our freedom with it. We can use that sense of self to provide stability and strength to our capacity to care, to love. In fact, the love we have might have more value if the sense of self is stable, strong, transparent, translucent, porous, and free of clinging.

So to begin, taking a meditation posture. Part of the value of the meditation posture is to not do it too casually as a way of sitting comfortably to forget about your body, but to use your body. Your posture is part of that decisiveness, that intentionality to be present, to be fully here with all of our faculties, including a physical presence. Whether you're sitting, lying down, or standing, there might be some way to adjust the posture to be intentional. So the posture itself expresses attentiveness.

Gently closing the eyes.

And with the eyes closed, see if you can find some very simple, generalized way that you feel your sense of self. Some general sense, not too well defined perhaps, that's been a companion for you through your life. The sense of self might not be who you are, but it is there within as a reference point. And like arranging your posture, can you organize that sense of self within? So you recognize it's there. You feel it. You give it room and space. Maybe appreciation.

And with the exhale, releasing any pressure you put on it, or any pressure it puts on itself. The sense of self might be in a particular place in your body, or it might be very generalized and wide. It's not a fixed thing, so there are many different ways that it can be felt. It might be some pressure, concentration, contraction. There might be some warmth, some care in it. There might be fear, desire.

As you exhale, relax the sense of self. Relax the place from which you know or think, or the place within which you feel or sense your experience. The place of decisions, the place of wonder and awe.

And as we continue now in silence, see if you can offer your goodwill, your metta, to your sense of self. Becoming friends with that sense of self within. Giving it a break from all its work, forgiving it for all that's difficult.

And for these few minutes, may this sense of self be happy, safe, peaceful. Breathe through it with love. Breathe with it in kindness. Wishing it well. Lightening its load.

To have love, or metta, for one's sense of self can be enhanced by appreciating some of our abilities, some of our inner sensibilities. Our own kindness, goodwill, to appreciate the goodness within that comes with a sense of self, and to wish it well.

And as we come to the end here, to whatever degree, in whatever way you've offered love and kindness to yourself, your sense of self—this is a great capacity, a great thing, to care, to offer goodwill. Turn that around to offer it now out into the world, and to offer it from that sense of self. The sense of self that's been loved, let it now radiate out into the world its goodwill.

May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be free.

And may our sense of self be one that maintains goodwill for all that we encounter.

May all beings be happy. Thank you.

Dharmette: Love (36) Metta Samadhi 11

Hello and welcome to this ongoing series on love from a Buddhist perspective. The subtopic for this week is metta samadhi: the ability to be immersed in our own capacity for goodwill. To not be scattered, not be divided, not be distracted, but to have a full, whole engagement with our capacity to love, like you would if you were absorbed in reading a book, or in doing a craft, or being with a good friend.

So I'd like to emphasize today something that we can call a "sense of self." This is not a technical term. It's not meant to be a metaphysical term. It doesn't necessarily have to refer to something that literally exists in some kind of metaphysical way. But I think it's ordinary enough to have some sense of centrality, some sense of inner focus, some sense of inner presence and attention. Some place where our generalized sense of self maybe exists, maybe resides. And it's completely ordinary. Maybe it's not a particular thing; it might be a combination of different capacities we have that coordinate with each other.

But the sense of self is not to be dismissed because we're Buddhists. Buddhists have this idea that there is not a self, or this teaching on not-self, and therefore we might think anything that looks like self or smells like self should be dismissed, ignored, or somehow doesn't count for attention.

But we do have some sense of agency, some sense of our locations. There's a whole bunch of apparatuses that are involved with really connecting to ourselves in a very important way to get around. If you are playing with a volleyball or beach ball and it's being thrown back and forth, there's a clear sense of your location in relationship to the ball—where to be, how to place yourself. There's a very clear sense of, "This is a body. This is my location. This is what needs to happen in relationship to that ball."

If you go into an elevator and one other person is already there, you don't become one with the elevator and not even notice the person. You don't just step right up against their nose. There's a natural way: we know ourselves, we know the person, we know something about our spatial distance. We have some sense of what's appropriate for providing others with safety, and maybe providing yourself with some ease in how you position yourself in the elevator. There are a lot of things that go on there. The choice not to stand there facing them directly in the elevator—most people just face the door and are side by side. Strangers don't look at each other. There's a whole sense of how to be that involves some general sense of agency, capacity, and our impact on others.

And that sense of agency, the location for agency, the location for thinking, for decision making, for reflection, for awe and wonder, a location for being hurt or being afraid—there's a sense that there's something here which is uniquely ourselves. That is what we identify with, that's important, that is what we want to track, take care of, and act from.

That general sense of self can sometimes be localized. We can find it inside of ourselves. Some people have a lot of their sense of self really tied up in thinking; it might be a sense of pressure or contraction in the head someplace. Someone else whose sense of self is very much connected to emotionality might feel a sense of self in their body, someplace in their chest or in their belly where the emotion is most activated.

It may be hard to find the exact place where it is, though sometimes the body's tensions and holdings come into play. Some people's sense of self is very much tied up with responsibility, and so there's a sense of heaviness or contraction, like a weight on it, a pressure on it to do something or to figure something out. And sometimes the sense of self has no pressure. Sometimes there's a sense of lightness, freedom, contentment, and ease. It's clear it's happening to oneself, and you know where that joy is being elicited.

So rather than dismissing the sense of self, we work with it. We practice with it. There are times when it's appropriate to embrace it, appreciate it, and give attention to it, and times when it's appropriate to put it down. Just like you would take off a sweater if you started to get too hot, there comes a time when it's appropriate to put to rest, to give a vacation to, that sense of self. It's not needed. But to be able to do that, to know when and when not to have it, takes some attention, care, and noticing. If you take the Buddhist idea of not-self and keep dismissing your sense of self and not paying any attention to it, then you won't know when to put it down, when to take the sweater off, or when to put it on.

One of the questions is: where is that sense of self? Does it involve some kind of coordination, a coming together of different capacities, sensations, or body parts? Does it come with a little bit of pressure? Does it come with a little bit of activation, or a lot of it? Does it come with a sense of flow? Does it seem more like a spring inside that water is flowing out of? Or is it more like a black box that's safe, hard, and tight, and you don't quite know what's in there?

There's a whole bunch of ways it could be. And there are a number of reasons to emphasize it here in a series about love. One is that if that sense of self is strong, if it's confident, if it knows how to be really present, then the love that we have for others has more value. It's seen more. It has more fullness.

If I just settle back deep in the couch—relaxed, easeful, not really caring about anything—and just say, "Oh yeah, I love you. Yeah, may you be happy," as I check my phone, the fact that you love someone that way doesn't carry much force. It doesn't carry much seriousness or fullness.

But if you sit up in your fullness, fully there with your whole body, and you say "I love you" to someone, then there's much more behind it. It's like you're really in it. You bring all of yourself. You really mean it. You're completely connected to it.

So this idea is to really bring the sense of self into the practice of love: yes, you take that sense of self, feel it, know it, and bring it so that the love has much more power, much more strength, and much more fullness, so it can be a samadhi. It's not casual. It's not, "I'll get around to it."

But also, sometimes it's easier to bring love, kindness, and goodwill to that sense of self. There's a long tradition of offering loving-kindness to oneself. But sometimes, "oneself" in that way is very generalized. If you identify some place within which is your sense of self, even if it's provisional, it's sometimes easier to offer love to that because it's almost like doing it for another person.

Sometimes it can feel selfish to do it for oneself, but doing it for one's sense of self is different. That sense of self has supported you, guided you, troubled you, and been part of you in some kind of undefinable way all your life. Maybe it's easier to appreciate it, to appreciate this companion. Maybe for a little bit, you can be its friend. Maybe you and it can go side by side. Offer your love: "May you be happy. May that sense of self not be troubled. May that sense of self not be the victim. May the sense of self not be the one who's overly responsible, who has to figure everything out"—even though that's what has been its mission. Just, "May you be happy. May you be at rest. May you be at peace. May you know that you're appreciated. You're no longer my enemy. I'm no longer trying to get rid of you here. This sense of self, may it be well."

I don't know if what I'm saying now makes sense to all of you, but to the degree which there is some sense of a location within, an activity or way of being, thinking, feeling, emoting, reflection, contemplation, or agency within that is somehow connected to a generalized sense of self—maybe the coordination point for all those things—wish it well. Support it to relax. Support it so it smiles, so it feels like there's someone here who's caring for it.

I know it's a little bit of a paradox to say that you should offer loving-kindness to your sense of self: who's the "you" who's doing it? Don't worry about that. Don't get caught up in the questions. Just do it. Just do love.

As you go through this next day, maybe spend some time reflecting on, exploring, and feeling your way into what your sense of self is. You have permission to discover it. Maybe you haven't spent a lot of time really getting to know it, even though it's been there with you all the time. Get to know it, feel it, sense it. Take different kinds of time in the day—in meditation, going for a walk, sitting with tea—where you reflect: What is this sense of self? Where is it? How does it function? Is it felt differently at different times? And as you feel it, appreciate it. Love it. Have goodwill for it, wish it well.

Then we'll continue on this theme tomorrow, of how the sense of self can support us to develop this metta samadhi.

Thank you.