Learning to Heal - Week 2 - Guided Meditation

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Learning to Heal - Week 2 - Guided Sit - Mindfulness of breath and body. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Ash Sangoram at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on April 23, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Learning to Heal - Week 2 - Guided Meditation

Welcome back. As maybe experienced in meditation, it's always useful to start from the beginning—to start from the first step, as it were.

Begin with a posture check. From the sacrum and tailbone all the way up through the spinal column, bring a sense of checking. Move your attention through the posture to notice if there's something that might be slightly encumbered or impeded, and see if some micro-adjustments can be made to undo that. Just gently.

Let the arms rest at the elbows. Bring awareness to the body sitting still, noticing that breath is entering the body. Exhale and open to sitting here. I'll only guide so as to support your own process. If you find yourself lost in thought or emotion, or in a different spot than you expected, that by itself—that noticing that you are away—allows you to then set the intention to return. For the purposes of this meditation, set the intention to return to where the breath is meeting the body.

It's a useful place to start, inhabiting that part of the body as it receives the breath, as opposed to somehow watching this happen. We are the breathing. Being able to adjust, even for disturbances, is part of the capacity to meditate. There's really no problem here. There's no need to be of concern.

Starting with a simple sit here, welcome that gentle posture. Take time to arrive. If there is a sense of maybe being a little flustered at the timing of your arrival, it is no big deal. No problem. You're welcome here. All of you are welcome here. The healing can start with just being.

The posture check returns. Feel your feet on the ground. Soften the ankles, the knees, the hips. Allow the weight that's being imposed on the seat of the chair to be felt. From the tip of the sacrum to the top of the spinal column, elongate, unencumbered and unimpeded. The body breathes. Simply return attention to where the breath meets the body. There are no right or wrong answers, just finding some safety in the body.

Okay. Our stories, our narratives, our traumas, problems, our sports—for this conscious mind, bring gentle attention to that breath arriving or leaving, and how it leaves the body.

We have a couple more minutes for this arrival. Let our momentum of mind settle a little bit. You don't have to slam on the brakes to arrive; just coast on your momentum. There is no danger. Just a gentle effort to bring attention to where this next breath meets the body. Presence drops us into the body through direct experience: stretch receptors, pain receptors, position sensors, vibration. With this sensory spark grid of perception devices within ourselves, allow these to stream directly.

Now we bring this first meditation to a close. Open your eyes. Make gentle movements that allow you to reset what might have gotten frozen and stuck. Just trust the process that your arrival meditation was just what it needed to be.