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Guided Meditation: Meditating with "No Story"

Hello everyone, and warm greetings from the Insight Meditation Center. For this morning's meditation, I'd like to offer you a small technique that works particularly well in meditation, and with wisdom, works very well in daily life as well. It's called the "one breath reset."

If you find yourself involved in storytelling in your mind—and storytelling means having a conversation with someone, imagining some scenario, remembering some scenario in the past, planning some scenario in the future, or making a story about the meditation itself, like concluding, "This is impossible," or, "Boy, I'm only two breaths away from full enlightenment," or whatever it might be—if you find yourself involved in a story while you're meditating, do the one breath reset.

That is, on the inhale, gently and lovingly, you say the word "no," and then finish the sentence on the exhale with the word "story." Breathing in, "no." Exhaling, "story." "No story."

The alternative to storytelling, and the reason to use this one breath reset, is that we're cultivating clarity in the present moment—clear awareness, clear attention to the present moment. For many of us, the anchor, the center of that clarity, is being cultivated with breathing. It is the simplicity of breathing, tuning in, and becoming clearer and clearer on the body's experience of breathing. Then you find yourself in stories, like, "I'm breathing the wrong way." If you're too involved in that kind of idea, it's a story. And then: "no story." One breath reset.

If it helps you, the inhale can be a little bit bigger than usual, so the exhale and the "no story" has a little bit more strength to it. But I wouldn't do it too strongly. Just a little bit more emphasis to it, and a little bit more wholeheartedly involved in the process of letting go of story as you exhale.

Maybe you won't need it today, but if you do, the one breath reset can be quite effective.

So, feel the posture that you're in now. Before making any other changes, notice how you are in your body. Feel your body from the inside. Almost as if you're discovering what the body wishes, adjust your posture a bit so your body feels more comfortable, more aligned, but also more supportive of becoming alert and clear here and now.

Gently close your eyes, and take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Breathing in deeply and feeling your body. Exhaling, releasing, and relaxing your body. And if you're already involved in a story, you might do the one breath reset—a practice that sometimes needs to be done repeatedly.

Then, let your breathing return to normal. See if you can get deep inside your body, from the inside out. As you exhale, relax the muscles of your face. On the exhale, soften the shoulders, releasing the shoulders to the pull of gravity. Maybe there are small adjustments in where your hands are placed that might loosen up your shoulders a bit more. Softening your belly. Releasing the stomach, the belly.

And also, as if you can feel deep inside your mind, see if you can relax your mind. On the exhale, softening. On the exhale, as if the mind can become broad and quiet like the surface of a quiet lake.

Then, settle awareness into the body's experience of breathing. As if maybe curtains are pulled from the window of the mind, of attention. Let the curtains be pulled so that you can experience breathing more clearly. Experience that; know the body's experience of breathing.

And then, whenever it's useful, do the one breath reset, with "no" on the inhale and "story" on the exhale. Be sure to say the words in a relaxed, gentle way, so that it supports the quieting of the mind, the stilling of the story-making mind here.

The one breath reset can give the mind and the heart a much-needed vacation from storytelling, meaning-making, predictions, and planning. Letting it all go. Reset back to clarity, to this moment.

When we can clear our minds enough of stories—stories of other people that we meet—it doesn't negate the stories. Maybe they're accurate. But it gives us a chance to see people freshly, to see how they are now, without seeing them through the filter of how they were or what happened. This is one of the gifts that's possible to come from meditation or from mindfulness: this ability to reset the mind enough to see people clearly as they are now, and therefore be able to listen to them better, take them in better, and know them. This can be for strangers and friends.

Chances are, as we get to know people more clearly and freshly, it's easier to have goodwill, easier to feel connected to their humanity. Perhaps there is something we learn through this meditation, some way that we're changed, that we can bring with us to our social interactions, to our concerns and care for people we don't interact with.

May we be predisposed to goodwill towards others. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may we support that possibility, maybe in the way in which we encounter others. May all beings be happy.

Dharmette: Binding and Unbinding (5 of 5) Unwholesome and Wholesome Views

Good morning. We come to the last day of this five-part series on aspects of our mind or mental activity that can be both wholesome and unwholesome, helpful and unhelpful. Because they look similar to each other, it's possible to confuse them—to be confused by what part is wholesome and when it's not wholesome, when it's useful and not useful.

Today's topic is the Pali word diṭṭhi^[1], which is usually translated into English as "views." Views, stories, opinions, and philosophies that we have can be a source of binding, of bondage, of being caught. But views can also be a source of freedom, setting us free, providing wisdom and helpful guidance in our lives.

In Buddhist English, there's a tendency to treat the English word "views" to refer to unhelpful opinions, stories, philosophies, and metaphysical ideas about what's happening here in this world of ours. Because there is a strong tendency of pointing out that views are unhealthy, sometimes people have the idea they're not supposed to have any understandings, stories, interpretations, or wisdom that guides them in their life, that supports them and is appropriate to have. But there are these two different possibilities.

The word diṭṭhi, as it's used in the Pali suttas^[2], is overwhelmingly used to refer to something like speculative views or fixed views. These two things—speculative and fixed—are significant. Speculative means opinions and views about things that we can't know directly; they're interpretations or stories. Fixed views are when we're caught in and attached to the view, being opinionated and holding onto it, saying, "This is the truth. This is how it is."

Fixed views can even be for understandings that are healthy and appropriate in and of themselves, but because of the way we hold them, there's suffering involved. There's attachment, there's clinging to the views: "I'm right and everyone else is wrong." This attachment to our philosophies and opinions can be operating whether or not our opinions are accurate. This is an important thing to consider for those of you who have accurate opinions, accurate ideas of what's going on, and accurate stories of what happened: the way you hold those can be a source of suffering for yourself and others when there's an insistence and a dogmatic attachment to them.

A lot of Buddhist practice is about overcoming speculative views, dogmatic views, and views that are speculating about the nature of reality, the nature of human beings, the nature of our life, and the nature of liberation. It is about discovering how to hold the views and understandings that come out of seeing something directly, from having direct experience for oneself.

When we first get introduced to Buddhism, maybe we take the teachings, the ideas, and perhaps even the philosophies a little bit on faith—enough faith that we're willing to do the practice. But it's provisional faith, a provisional view. We understand this is provisional: "I've reasoned it out, it seems pretty good, but let's now find out." The idea is that we're moving in the direction of insight, where our understanding comes from direct experience for ourselves.

What we don't know yet from personal experience is taken on provisionally as something that we can discover for ourselves. You can use a little bit of reflection to think about philosophies, views, religious thoughts, or metaphysical ideas that might be attractive and seem right to you. But you might realize, "I can never prove it for myself." This is outside the reach of direct experience and direct sensory experience. If you want to hold on to that, you know that you can't discover for yourself whether it's true; it becomes an article of faith. What we're looking for in Buddhism are those understandings and views that we believe can be verified for ourselves, that we can discover for ourselves.

Take something as simple as the idea, the story, that if you cling you will suffer, and if that clinging is released, the suffering is released as well. That is something that belongs to the area of direct experience. It might not be easy to experience, but it is something that with time we can start seeing how it works: "Yeah, in fact I was clinging, and then I suffered. Before I clung, there was no suffering."

A big thing that Buddhism teaches is that all our experiences are inconstant. This is a central tenet, held up high as very important, but it's meant to be an insight that we can verify for ourselves. The view of life that we get through practice is a view built on this deeper and deeper appreciation of how things are changing all the time, impermanent and inconstant.

With time, we see how this insight has a liberating quality. Freeing ourselves up from the idea of constancy, permanence, or fixity makes us much more fluid and adaptable to all the changes that go on all the time in life.

You know, there's a view in Buddhism that "there is no self." That view that people sometimes advocate is not actually what the Buddha taught. With some reflection, maybe you can appreciate that you can't really discover that there is no self. How would you know that? What the Buddha focused on is what you can know for yourself. What you can know is that particular things in your experience do not qualify as a definition of "who I am" or "this is myself."

The movement is to see what in our experience we took as ourselves that is not really how we fundamentally are. Holding on to that is a kind of suffering; it is a kind of wind drag that slows us down. Not identifying with that is actually more freedom and more ease in our lives.

But it's always something particular. As practice gets deeper and deeper, all the particulars in our life are seen as "not-self"^[3]. It's not an idea that there is no self, but it's also not the idea that there is a self. The philosophical idea of what is and is not a self is considered a speculative view that we don't get involved in. What we get involved in is what we can see directly and know for ourselves.

The understandings and views that come from insight and direct experience are what we rely on in practice. They can give a sense of purpose and direction to our lives. They can guide our lives in a certain way. When we see clearly that there is a possibility to suffer less, when we see it's possible to let go of clinging, when it's possible to see below the fixed views and interpretations we have and see things more directly for ourselves, this can be a powerful inspiration and motivation. It motivates us to continue on this path of freedom in direct experience, and not get hung up in speculative philosophies which we can maybe never ascertain for ourselves directly.

If there are philosophies that we can ascertain for ourselves directly in some way, and we're motivated, we can practice to see how we can discover that for ourselves. In describing his teaching, the Buddha once said, "I just point out the way; it's up to you to walk the path." By appreciating what we can discover through direct experience, we are shown what that path is that we walk.

We can get wrapped up and caught up in opinions, stories, views, and philosophies about how things are, or we can have understandings, philosophies, and even stories that point to freedom beyond stories. These point us to how to be free here in direct experience, opening up to what's really here in a deeper way.

And then, discovering the stories that are possible in direct experience, in really seeing clearly what's here. One of those stories is the story of freedom—the story of moving from suffering to the freedom from suffering. It is the story of happiness, of living a clear life with clarity and release. That's a story that's worth living, and maybe we can share that story with each other: stories of what we discover in being free.

Thank you. For those of you in the United States, I hope you have a wonderful three-day weekend. I'll be back here Monday as usual, even though it's a holiday, and some of you might be away. So I wish you well.

In the meantime, over this weekend, you might look a little bit at the role that views, stories, and opinions have for you personally. See if you can discern the difference between the views, stories, and interpretations that you're caught in, and those that you're not caught in—those which are helpful to see more deeply into our direct experience with ourselves and other people, and those stories that obscure a real insight into what's happening here and now. Thank you.