Guided Meditation: This Breath Is Enough; Dharmette: Impermanence (10): Joy in the Path

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: This breath is enough; Impermanence (10): Joy in the Path. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Maria Straatmann at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on April 25, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: This Breath Is Enough

Hello. Welcome to IMC. Welcome to this time together. Whatever time it is, whatever day, whatever time of day, we're entering in this time together, the brief time that we are here. And at this moment, we're going to settle into a period of meditation, a period that we're devoted entirely to mindfulness, of just being here now.

So do so. Settle in. Find a comfortable, alert posture. Allow your body to be in this space. Your mind to be in this space. Here we are. Here we are.

Take a breath. Connect with your body. Let it out slowly. And another. Do a scan of your body. Recognize the pieces of it that are here. That is all part of being you, being here in this moment. Each of us, the head on our shoulders, the shoulders relax into this position. Rest and being here.

Let your torso support your weight. No, it's supporting my weight. My feet where I sit on the chair, supporting my balance, supporting this being, being here. The breath supporting this being. Just being.

Bring your attention to the breath. Know that the air is moving in and out. Be aware of the dynamic movement that is sustaining you here. Allow yourself to be grateful for being here. Whatever else is true here, here we are.

Settle into following the breath. In and out. Let it be just as it is. See it just as it is. Feel it just as it is. It doesn't need to be any different. The body doesn't need to be any different to be here. Just be here with each breath.

The awareness settles with gentle attention. Gentle attention. No need to be anywhere else, do anything else, be anyone else. Just aware of being alive with each breath. How delightful. The soft movement of air. Enough. It's enough.

When the breath is enough, the mind can settle. No judgments, no comparisons, just the breath. It's always there. It's enough.

But right now, quietly, gently, the air moves in and out. Even when we're breathing hard and fast, the air just moves softly in and out, whether in gasps or slow exhales. The movement, the constant change is reassuring, is comforting. It is a delight to be able to breathe, to know breath, to know the breath, to know I am here, here and able to just be here just as the breath, whatever the space feels like.

Whatever the sound, the hearing, the ease or restlessness of the body, the breath keeps moving, not still, but here. The body breathes—common, usual, and so miraculous. This breath. So much range of this breath.

If you can, if you wish, if you're inclined, expand your awareness to include yourself breathing in this space. Feel the space, just the space around you that the air is moving in and out of. This awareness goes beyond the skin of your body. The space may seem small or large. It may be infinite. It may feel closed. It is all just here, common. The experience of being here, alive, breathing.

No requirements, no need to be different, no preference. Just the body breathing in this space. Now, how marvelous?

Even awareness. Gentle, lightly. The absence of rushing, the absence of needing. Enough.

Mindful of this breath, this moment. It's enough. Totally engaged with this moment is enough.

Dharmette: Impermanence (10): Joy in the Path

Welcome everyone.

So, this is our last day that we're considering, the last day that I'm here teaching this morning. And what we've been talking about these last two weeks is impermanence^[1], that all things arise, are present, and pass away.

You know, thirty years ago, I was in the depths of depression and pretty sure that I had totally screwed up my life and I was hopeless. I went to a bookstore reading by Sylvia Boorstein^[2], and the thing that impressed me more than—she was at the time promoting her book, Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist. It's hard to believe that's thirty years old, but you know, time passes like everything. And what really struck me about her was she had no stress wrinkles in her forehead. This may seem trivial to you, but to me it was a really big deal. This woman is totally comfortable in herself right here. I was so struck by that.

You know, when we talk about impermanence, we introduce a kind of feeling that something has to be done about it, or that there are things we have to do, that we have to somehow grasp it. Or we get so entangled with what it might mean for us, that we sometimes forget that this practice can bring joy. This practice is not about asceticism for the sake of asceticism. Now, sometimes practice appears to be arduous and needy in itself, but really, practice is enough in itself.

So the IMC website earlier this week had the following quote from the Buddha up: "Don't chase the past or long for the future. The past is left behind; the future is not yet reached. Right where it is, have insight into whatever experience appears." This is all that we need—is to be here and really engaged in this experience of being alive in this moment. It doesn't mean that there's nothing else important in the world. But it is a call for seeing experience as the act of being in our lives. The path is an affirmation. It's not a road to the future. The path is an affirmation.

When we're not searching for something away from the present, we can actually experience the joy of wholly and completely inhabiting our lives. Andrew Olendzki^[3] in his book Untangling Self says, "Every moment of mindfulness is a moment of equanimity^[4]." We don't have to chase equanimity. Every moment of mindfulness is a moment of equanimity. It is not a disengagement from the object of awareness, but the full and complete engagement with it.

I'm standing. I'm sitting. I feel the weight of my body solidly in the chair. I don't have to worry about how I'm sitting or why I'm sitting. Just sitting. Just this. Sometimes we miss the importance of that instruction of the Buddha: "Just this." When standing, just stand. Know you are standing. In that moment, I'm neither wanting nor not wanting. I'm not preferring. I'm just sitting.

Olendzki makes the point that equanimity is actually an emotional response, pointing to an intensity of emotional response that accepts and even celebrates what's happening without trying to distort it into something else, into something I prefer. I don't have to distort this moment into something I prefer.

Jane Hirshfield^[5] has a really short poem about this. It's called "A Cedary Fragrance":

Even now, decades after, I wash my face with cold water— Not for discipline, nor memory, nor the icy, awakening slap, but to practice choosing to make the unwanted wanted.

Have you had the experience when you wake up from a dream, for those of you who remember a dream, or you remember vaguely something is happening, and the mind immediately starts filling things in? You know, sort of embellishing the memory: "Well yeah, it was a basement and the reason it was scary is there was this face, and yeah, I know that face." And the mind fills stuff in trying to make it a better dream, or depending on your mind state, a darker dream. We're so acclimated to making ourselves comfortable that we forget that it's a habit of mind.

There's nothing wrong with being comfortable. So I'm not speaking against that. You know, I'm sitting here in a warm sweater and I'm on a comfortable chair, and there's nothing wrong with that. And we don't have to seek out discomfort. There's no virtue in that. But perhaps not rushing to end it might be a good idea, to practice to see what it's like to make the unwanted wanted, to have it be okay.

In meditation, we're less distracted. So it is easier to see when the mind is adding stuff, when the mind moves toward "this is me and mine," because there's not so much happening. We can kind of see the mind liking or not liking. We can see that tendency arising and we can practice dispassionate attention. Dispassionate watching where we're not engaged in what it means, but simply there for it. We can start to see the mind, feel the body reacting to this formation of self around what we experience.

This is one of the virtues of meditation, is that it slows things down enough that we can see what the mind is doing. We can see when preference—we can feel when preference arises. There's a kind of attention, a very subtle attention to "I want that" or "I don't want that," to know what that feels like in your body. With equanimity, the awareness is really gentle. This non-preference. Non-preference. I don't have an opinion about it. I just see it.

Out in the world, when we're not sitting comfortably on our cushion, we are wild with distractions. Irritation arises, anger arises. When we engage with anger and our own anger goes up, someone else's anger and we respond with anger, this is never a good outcome. It simply escalates. But if we can see anger and get back in touch with our own intention toward peace, kindness, whatever that intention feels like to you, just touch it briefly. It softens our response, pulls us away from that rather curdling feeling of ill will. Maybe it allows us to see the other person: "Oh, you're suffering. Look, he's suffering. Look, she's really hurt by something." And it softens our response, calls up our own compassion for ourselves and for them. It doesn't take care of the adrenaline rushing through the body. But that can be taken care of in a different way. We do not have to respond in anger.

The Buddha said, "Seeing people locked in conflict, I became completely distraught. But then I discerned here a thorn hard to see, lodged deep in the heart. It's only when pierced by this thorn that one runs in all directions. So if that thorn is taken out, one does not run and settles down."

See the thorn in yourself, in the other. Pull that preferring it to be otherwise out, and then see how you respond. Equanimity is not a state to be attained. It's a state to be seen.

Another brief Jane Hirshfield poem called "Nothing Lasts":

Nothing lasts. How bitterly the thought attends each loss. Nothing lasts. A promise also of consolation.

Grief and hope. The skipping rope's two ends. Twin daughters of impatience. One wears a dress of wool, the other cotton.

But it reminds us that change is not always about loss and the negative aspects of uncertainty. Change is also change.

I remember having a conversation with my mother when I said, "You know, everything is so wonderful right now. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop." And she said, "Have you ever considered this is the other shoe?" [Laughter] No. No, I hadn't. I hadn't considered that.

Once when I was a yogi at a retreat, my job was to serve the monastics' breakfast. When you serve a monastic, you have to offer them everything, even their own vitamins. You have to offer them their vitamins. So it's a very elaborate process and you become quite intimate after a few weeks of doing this with them. And a particular monk, Vivekananda^[6], who is absolutely a marvelous person, had a habit of giving gratitude to me every time I offered him. And I wrote down one day something that he said: "May the offering of this breakfast bring great joyousness, and this joyousness lead to a glad heart that leads to a still mind and insight and wisdom toward awakening."

What he offered me was the memory that offering him breakfast could bring great joyousness. That, and this joyousness lead to a glad heart that leads to a still mind and insight and wisdom toward awakening. It's important to be able to receive a gift. This is the true joy of dana^[7], is to receive something so that the other person can experience the totality of generosity.

I'm always impressed by this. I'm always happy for someone else when dana arrives. And I remind myself it has nothing to do with me. Dana has nothing to do with me. I'm merely a conduit. I depersonalize the receipt. Depersonalize the receipt. But receive with joy.

This too is the lesson of impermanence and equanimity. Accepting things just as they are.

Viktor Frankl^[8] is a Holocaust survivor, and one of the things that he wrote in his famous book was: "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way of meeting what life presents."

I want to share with you a poem that I first heard from Stuart Kutchins^[9], who's a Zen priest out in West Marin, and I sat with him for about fifteen years, and he read this poem many times. I think I appreciate it more now than I did then. It's a Wallace Stevens^[10] poem called "Of Mere Being." The title is important: "Of Mere Being."

The palm at the end of the mind, Beyond the last thought, rises In the bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird Sings in the palm, without human meaning, Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason That makes us happy or unhappy. The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space. The wind moves slowly in the branches. The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

May you know the bird at the end of mind whose fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

Be in this moment. May you all be free. Thank you. And thank you for sharing these two weeks with me. It's a great joy to me.