---
ai_generation_date: '2026-09-11'
ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview
audiodharma:
  talks:
    - date: '2021-02-24'
      mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/12992/20210224-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-guided_meditation_expansive_mind.mp3
      speakers:
        - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal
          speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1
      talk_start_time_seconds: 0
      title: 'Guided Meditation: Expansive Mind'
      url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12992
      video_unavailable: false
location_city: Redwood City, CA
video_unavailable: false
youtube:
  id: d2YXVfRO3QY
  imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04'
  title: 'Guided Meditation: Expansive Mind'
  upload_date: null
  uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center
  uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter
youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2YXVfRO3QY
---

# Guided Meditation: Expansive Mind - [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._

## [Guided Meditation: Expansive Mind](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12992)

## Introduction

Good day. It's a happy occasion to be here with you all and have the opportunity to meditate together. For me to teach, it's a privilege, and I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.

We have this wondrous, wonderful mind, _citta_[^1], that begins to stand out and highlight the calmer the mind becomes. When the mind is agitated, it means it's caught up in its concerns, its preoccupations, its agitation. Often then, the more agitated the mind is, the more it's swirling around in its thoughts, ideas, and feelings. It's a subset—particular aspects of the mind that the mind is focusing on—thinking, for example, or emotions, ideas, or memories.

What we're doing as we switch to being mindful of the mind is to no longer have preferential attention to particular corners of the mind or particular activities of the mind. As the activities of the mind get quieter and calmer, what's available then in highlight—and over time as meditation deepens it becomes stronger and stronger—is a felt sense of the mind as a whole. Exactly what that is, is not so important. What's important is your own way of experiencing it. Some people might prefer to use the word "awareness" to represent the mind as a whole, the total gestalt of how things are operating. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So there's something marvelous that happens as we open up more widely and fully to the mind.

In this early tradition, sometimes this mind stands out so much in highlight that it's anthropomorphized. It's sometimes seen as a person, as if a person can talk to their mind, work with their mind, or train their mind. However, it's never seen as the self. This movement of "selfing"[^2]—of positing feelings and sensing itself—in this early tradition is seen as just another form of mental activity that can also be calmed down and put to rest. As it does so, that also frees up the space for feeling the mind as a whole.

Sometimes it's called the state of the mind, or the inner mood, the general mood of our mentality or the heart-mind. It begins to shift the orientation of how we live our life. Rather than focusing on the particular concerns we have, it gives us the opportunity to care for—and I love this word _care_—compassionately care for, lovingly care for the quality of the mind, or the quality of the heart, the quality of this inner life that we have. That's the gestalt, the totality of it that here in the tradition is called _citta_, mind.

We can begin settling the mind, opening the mind, pleasing the mind, bringing joy and happiness to the mind, and liberating the mind. It's such a phenomenally satisfying thing to switch from the details and concerns of our life to the present moment experience of mind, and caring for that. So with that as an introduction, I will assume a meditation posture.

## Guided Meditation

Gently close your eyes. With the eyes closed, and feeling your body from the inside out, take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Deep, deep breaths, really as if you haven't breathed for a while and finally you get to really fill yourself with oxygen. Then exhale a delightful, long exhale. Ah, here you are. Here you are, breathing in and breathing out.

Then let your breathing return to normal for a few moments, and just sit here and feel your body. Maybe those deep breaths have had an influence or effect on your body. Maybe the body is a little more present; there are more sensations to feel. Maybe you want to adjust your posture a little bit more.

Then we'll do a little breathing exercise that will maybe help with a deeper relaxation—maybe a relaxation deep inside the heart, the mind, the _citta_. It involves taking a deeper breath, but only about three-quarters full, only as far as is comfortable. When you get to the top of that particular in-breath, hold the in-breath a little bit. Don't exhale right away, and hold it for as long as it's comfortable. As you release it, as you begin the exhale, see if that occasion can be one of a deep relaxation, a letting go. It's almost like the holding of the breath heightens the awareness of your body, your insides, so that there's more available to relax as you exhale.

So taking a three-quarters comfortable deep in-breath, holding it as long as it's comfortable, and then exhaling with a deep relaxation. It might be that the exhales can be longer than usual. Maybe as you exhale you also relax the mind itself, softening, opening, and expanding the mind. Even if you can't relax the mind, as you exhale feel whatever softness there is in the mind. Feel whatever transparent boundaries there are to the mind.

If it's comfortable, continue a little bit longer. Now at the end of the exhale pause a bit, just as long as it's comfortable, before you inhale. So there's a rhythm of inhaling, pausing, exhaling, and pausing that brings a heightened awareness to your body and mind, and a greater ability to relax and settle in.

Then let your breathing return to normal, with no special effort to pause or hold, and take a few moments to feel and sense your body again. If there are some areas of your body you can easily relax, soften around the face. Release the shoulders, softening the belly.

If the relaxing you've done and the settling in you've done brings any sensations of pleasure or well-being, breathe with the pleasure. Breathe with a sense of well-being: the tingling, the warmth, the glow, the dancing energy. Allow the thinking mind to become quieter. Let go of thoughts so you can have more energy, more attention to feel the body breathing with the well-being that might be here, however small it might be.

You might become aware of how the mind's attention is predisposed to focus on particular things, concerns, or preoccupations. If so, then you're experiencing a limited aspect of your whole wondrous mind. Without necessarily letting go of your concerns, can you expand your awareness to include more of your interior life? More of the quality of your inner life, your mind, your heart, the state of your mind, the state of your inner being? Something that inclusive, because everything that happens, happens within the mind.

Then breathe with the mind, breathe through it. Almost as if each inhale fills the mind with the sensations of the inhale, and each exhale relaxes, expands the mind, and settles it. Becoming aware of the global mind, the global sense of the state of mind, the mood of the mind. The quality of the mind overall. It could include the space of the mind, the space that the mind fills. So you're not focusing on any particular part of the mind. A state which has no boundaries.

If it has a location, this mind of yours, chances are that there's a little feeling of contraction or gathering together that gives that feeling. As you exhale, relax that gathering together. Soften. Let the mind rest out into the vast space all around. Mind with no walls, no boundaries. Mind that involves no conscious effort, that is just there, here.

If there is suffering, suffering has a location. The mind includes all that is beyond the edges of that suffering—that's wider, bigger. And to relax outward beyond the suffering, whatever suffering there is, is held in this wide field of open mind, open awareness that has no edges. Breathing in, outward breathing that goes outwards towards the edges, beyond the edges. All-inclusive, wide, broad, open. Resting into the open space.

## Reflections and Metta

And as we come to the end of the sitting, with whatever way that you can rest in open space without the mind getting quickly fixated or preoccupied on any particular thing—just open and receptive, allowing things just to flow through you. Nothing stops, nothing is held onto.

Staying that way the best you can, bring to mind some person that you might encounter today, personally or through some medium of communication, phone, or computer. Imagine that you are quietly allowing that person to exist as they are, without you fixating on anything, as if they too can be held in the vast open mind. In that way, providing them with a gift: that they can be just the way they are without any interference from you, with your desires, aversions, agendas, or reactions. Allowing someone to be themselves in the vast open space of your mind.

In doing so, imagining that you're doing so, does that give you a different reference point for goodwill, for love, friendliness, care, even respect for this other person? If it does, maybe wish them well.

_May this person be happy._  
_May this person be safe._  
_May this person be peaceful and at ease._  
_May this person be free, certainly free of my attachments._

And may it be that other people that you encounter, and other people that you have some contact with or think about today, that they also benefit from this meditation practice you've done today.

_May all beings be happy._  
_May all beings be at ease._  
_May all beings be free._

And may we contribute to that.

---

[^1]: **_Citta_:** A Pali term most commonly translated as "mind," "heart," or "mind-heart." It refers to the overall quality, state, or mood of consciousness rather than just the thinking intellect. Original transcript spelled this phonetically as "chitta ci tta".

[^2]: **Selfing:** In Buddhist practice, "selfing" (related to the concept of _anatta_ or not-self) refers to the continuous, conditioned mental activity of creating and clinging to a sense of a separate, solid "I", "me", or "mine."