Guided Meditation: Breathing With Pleasure

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The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 21, 2021. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Breathing With Pleasure

So here you are. Each of you is there, and you're here. Spot your spot for being here. I think we should never overlook the hereness of this moment, the hereness of where we are and where we're going to meditate. To be here, not as a coincidence, not as something to overlook, not as something that is insignificant, but rather here is the most important place for this moment, for this meditation. Assume a posture for being here, to be rooted to this place and to this time, and to feel the connection of your body to this location. Feel the way the weight of your body is received by whatever it is that, in a sense, stops the pull of gravity, that keeps you in this location.

Adjust the body a bit. Especially, it's nice to adjust it so the breathing can be freer, more relaxed, and more open without getting tense and without straining. Maybe it's something you can do with a spine that frees up the front of the torso so the breathing can be more easeful. Maybe sitting up a little straighter in the spine.

See if you can take some deeper breaths that are enjoyable for you to take. Maybe for you, it's to do just a little bit deeper than what you're already doing, or maybe doing it slowly. Maybe the feeling of depth or fullness of breathing is felt more in the belly, or more in the top of the chest, or the middle of the chest. Or maybe the sense of enjoyable, fuller, deeper breathing is a more subtle expansion of the back rib cage. Or maybe there's something pleasant about a deep, full breath—the gentle pressure downward as you breathe in. The diaphragm pushes down, pressing against the intestines and innards there. Perhaps that gentle pushing down is a grounding here to this spot. As you exhale, is there any place in your body that would be kind of pleasant or enjoyable to relax or soften? Any place in your body as you exhale that it would be nice to relax?

Letting your breathing return to normal, take a few breaths to familiarize yourself with your breathing. Notice the places in your body that move the most as you breathe, and where there's movement in the breathing, but the movement is just light. Then once again, take a few deeper breaths, gently, quietly, not too much. If it happens to be that you feel some resistance or holding back at the top of the in-breath, see if you can relax around that place of holding resistance. Not ambitiously, but more as an expression of kindness to yourself and a willingness to relax there. At the end of the exhale, is there also some holding back? If so, can you relax and release the end of the exhale? Maybe the exhale is a little bit longer.

Then again, letting the breathing return to normal, feel your breathing now. Perhaps by letting the thinking mind become quieter, it allows you to have more attention when feeling the body breathing.

Ever so gently, maybe just very slightly within the range of what could be considered normal breathing, see if there are some simple ways to adjust your breathing to make it more pleasant. A little bit slower, a little bit faster, a little fuller, or a little bit more shallow in a smaller breath. Maybe you find it a little bit more pleasant to breathe more fully into the belly, or more fully into the chest. Or to really focus on the sensations of air going in and out through the nostrils.

Notice if there are any feelings of pleasure or pleasantness in the breathing. That it's pleasant to breathe—maybe not so much your effort to breathe, but the sensations in the body of breathing. Is there anything about them that feels pleasant, enjoyable, or comforting? It can be very slight. Are there any small ways you can adjust around your breathing? Maybe by being aware of a smaller, little spot in your body where it's most pleasant. Or maybe it's a broad awareness of the body breathing over a larger spot, or the whole torso.

Then as you exhale, relax your body more in order to settle into your breathing. Settling in to be with your breathing for these minutes we're together. If your mind wanders off in thought, when you begin again with your breathing, spend a few breaths re-establishing an enjoyable breath, the pleasant breathing. Even if it's just one little piece of the cycle of breathing. Or maybe just re-establish a breathing which feels a little bit better than what you were doing. Every time the mind wanders off, spend a little bit of time reconnecting to whatever is good about breathing in and breathing out.

Let the thinking mind become quieter so you can be in your body more, feeling the embodied experience of breathing. Can you relax your belly as you breathe? Maybe it's more pleasant to breathe a little bit further behind, to feel the area just a little bit in the back of where you feel breathing. Not so much exactly in the center of your breathing area, but kind of in the back of it, just behind it or on the backside of it, so that maybe there's a little bit less sense of control, or there's a lighter, more delicate feeling of breathing.

While you're focusing on breathing—so your central vision, central awareness is on breathing—peripherally, see if you can allow the body to be allowing, receptive. The body is open, willing to experience the influence of breathing. It's kind of like breathing is a gentle wind that spreads its influence across the body, or a light that's been turned on that glows outwards. Letting the body be receptive, allowing for whatever influence the focus on breathing might have. Not looking for something particular, just available, with breathing at the center. Quietly receiving the body's breathing.

Perhaps breathing within whatever larger context of pleasure, or joy, or contentment there might be. Whatever larger feeling of wholeness, calmness. Breathing is at the center of a wider field of goodness, wholeness, settledness, pleasure, joy, happiness. The thinking mind becomes quieter so attention can better feel and sense the fullness of the way breathing spreads its influence out into the goodness around it, the wholeness around it.

There might be ways that you do not feel calm or do not feel pleasure, that you're uncomfortable. It's okay. But there might also be, in addition to that, around it, underneath it, in the middle of it somewhere, the opposite feelings. A wholeness, a calmness that holds it all, or can accept it all. An ability to stay gently aware of the breathing, the rhythm of breathing, so you're not preoccupied by the discomfort. It can be there, but let it be just a piece of the picture in the background, you just breathing.

Dedication

Sitting here quietly at the end of this meditation, is there anything that feels more settled for you, calmer for you, having done this meditation? In some way or other, do you feel better than you were when you started the meditation?

If you do, if you would like, you could offer the goodness of your meditation—how you're calmer, more settled, maybe even a little happier, peaceful—offer that for the welfare and happiness of others. Or dedicate it. Let it be dedicated in some way or other, that you use that as the basis for benefiting the world, out into the world. May it be a force, may it be an avenue, a support for bringing greater comfort and peace, calm, joy, and love into the world.

May we do that a little bit actively, not just as a wish, but as an inspiration for being concerned for the welfare of others. May it be that this meditation is dedicated to the welfare and happiness of others.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be free. May all beings be peaceful. And may our love and our care support that possibility.