--- ai_generation_date: '2026-10-03' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2021-03-25' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/13193/20210325-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-mindfulness_of_breathing_62_opening_to_constant_change.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: Mindfulness of Breathing (62) Opening to Constant Change url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13193 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: PeDZzuxO0JQ imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Dharmette: Mindfulness of Breathing (62) Opening to Constant Change' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeDZzuxO0JQ --- # Mindfulness of Breathing (62) Opening to Constant Change - [Gil Fronsdal](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1) _This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers._ ## [Mindfulness of Breathing (62) Opening to Constant Change](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13193) So, in this process of _anapanasati_[^1]—mindfulness of breathing in, mindfulness of breathing out—we've come to the core heart of it: the insight aspect of it. The purpose of insight is to liberate us, to free us. It involves very clearly centering ourselves in the core dynamism, the core aspect of how this life is. All the steps before, in a sense, are preparing us. I want to emphasize how important this preparation is. It is certainly preparation for what we're doing in the last steps, but what we're doing in the last steps is also preparing ourselves, opening our willingness to meet this world as it is. It is the ability to really be in this suffering world and to be prepared for that, to have really developed the qualities of attention, concentration, persistence, and well-being. We have purified ourselves, worked through the hindrances[^2], and settled the attitudes and places where we needed to be healed. This is a beautiful and profound process, and we need this for our hearts to be available to care for this suffering world. And so, we come to this thirteenth step, where we are observing impermanence, or inconstancy. This has different aspects. That things are changing and inconstant means, for one, that there is loss; things disappear. But also, the very fact that things change allows for new beginnings. The fall gives birth to the winter; the winter gives birth to the spring. Things pass away and die away in the fall, and then get reborn in the spring. We need this cycle. ## Meeting a Suffering World We live in a world of tremendous suffering. So much that we've experienced in the news now for so long—the amount of hate that gets expressed in violence and killing—is astounding. It has been going on since the time of the Buddha. So how do we address this? How do we meet this? _Anapanasati_ is this profound, helpful, and healing practice. Just staying constant with the inconstancy of breathing, the rhythm of breathing, frees us from the contractions, the resistance, the fears, the preoccupations, and the distractions of the mind. It allows something to settle and come into harmony and ease. This allows for the self-healing qualities of this human body and heart to operate. It makes room for some of the most beautiful qualities of who we are to surface and come forward. To really be able to dip into inconstancy and its changing nature is to have a direct confrontation with what's most difficult in human life, but also with what's most wonderful and healing. Because things change, not only is there loss, but there's also the disappearing of things which are not useful, painful, or difficult. Suffering disappears as well. Part of the inconstancy and the changing, impermanent nature of all this is a rich, rich world of so many things that we enter into, sometimes simultaneously. There is loss, but with loss, there's also a gain, in the sense that we also lose our suffering at times. With the new arising and appearing of things, some things are not good, but there's also the possibility of good things. The teachings of the Buddha tell us that to really see, feel, and be in this current of change gives us some agency to shape how we experience and how we are in this world. We certainly can't change the world dramatically, most of us, but we can change our immediate world. We can change ourselves. The practice has a lot to do with understanding change, finding a way to harmonize with it, and working with it. We cultivate and develop ourselves to become better people, to prepare ourselves for this world so that we have resiliency, open-heartedness, non-clinging, and non-hostility. It is a powerful thing to work with the changing nature of this world. In _vipassana_[^3] practice, we're working with that changing nature of the world all the time, but it's not often emphasized. Now, on this thirteenth step of _anapanasati_, this is the part of the world that we're really working with. We are entering into this flow and this change. ## The Freedom of Direct Experience It may be easy for a teacher to say what I'm about to say, but maybe much more difficult to do. To really enter into what the Buddha was emphasizing, to really observe inconstancy, means that we're no longer in the sway of, caught in, or seeing reality through the lens of our concepts, ideas, and stories. All of those are also part of the inconstant, changing world. Stories come and go; they arise and they pass. There's all this change, flow, and movement in the story-making mind and the concept-making mind. Everything is flowing and changing. So how do we really get into that and rest in it? The Buddha taught that this is where freedom is found. It's the core insight of the Buddhist teachings, over and over again: to see inconstancy, to see change, to see impermanence. This truth is represented by a number of things. The first person who was enlightened after hearing the Buddha's teachings proclaimed his awakening with the statement: "Everything that has the nature to arise has the nature to pass away." The Buddha explained that everything is inconstant—everything that is an experience. Concepts might not be. The ancient Greeks had a lot of debates about the nature of impermanence, change, and constancy in this world; it's a common topic for philosophers. The famous philosopher Plato wasn't that comfortable with everything changing. He wanted to have something that was permanent, and he settled on platonic concepts—ideas that are unchanging. But ideas are not direct experience. The Buddha, over and over again, was placing ourselves in direct experience: breathing with it, being mindful of it, feeling it, and really entering into this inconstant world to know it, because that is the way to freedom. As I said, the first person who was enlightened saw that everything that has a nature to arise has the nature to pass away. There's something about that insight that was liberating. When the Buddha died, one of the first statements someone said became the funeral chant for Buddhists. It is also said to be the saying of the _arahant_[^4], the fully enlightened one. It goes, to chant in Pali[^5]: "_Aniccā vata saṅkhārā, uppāda-vaya-dhammino... sukho_."[^6] All things are inconstant; they have the nature of arising and passing away. Those who see deeply into this truth experience happiness. This is not the happiness of being totally delighted and happy all the time, but a deeper happiness, contentment, or satisfaction. It is an intimacy where we are in touch with what is real in this real world of ours. Even if this world is full of suffering—which it is, with the violence against Asian Americans lately, and the shootings in so many places in this country, but most recently in Boulder—you can't say we're happy in relationship to that. But there can be a feeling of rightness. Yes, if this happens in the world, we want to be present for it. We want to know it. It's right to be aware of it, even if it's painful, even if it touches some of the deepest strings in our hearts. We want to have the capacity that, if this is what's happening, yes, let's be present for it. Let's breathe with it. All the steps of _anapanasati_ can be relevant for this. Feeling that pain is not the same as saying, "I am suffering." The freedom of this practice, the rightness of this practice, is to feel this world, to be present for this world without suffering, but willingly feeling the pain of this world so that we can also have compassion and care for it. We prepare ourselves for all that this world has to offer so that we can offer ourselves as someone who is loving, compassionate, and caring. We live in this world in a way that supports the betterment of all beings everywhere. May all beings everywhere be free. Thank you. --- [^1]: **Anapanasati:** Mindfulness of breathing. A core meditation practice in Buddhism focusing on the inhalation and exhalation of breath. [^2]: **Five Hindrances:** In Buddhism, five mental states that impede meditation and daily life: sensory desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt. [^3]: **Vipassana:** Insight meditation. A Buddhist practice aimed at seeing the true nature of reality, such as impermanence, suffering, and non-self. [^4]: **Arahant:** A fully awakened person who has abandoned all fetters and attained Nirvana. [^5]: **Pali:** The ancient Indian language used to preserve the original Buddhist scriptures of the Theravada tradition. [^6]: **Chant Correction:** The auto-generated transcript originally rendered this phonetically as "anicia domino suko." This has been corrected to reflect the standard Pali verse Gil is referencing: "_Aniccā vata saṅkhārā, uppāda-vaya-dhammino..._" (often chanted in full as _Aniccā vata saṅkhārā, uppāda-vaya-dhammino, uppajjitvā nirujjhanti, tesaṃ vūpasamo sukho_).