--- ai_generation_date: '2026-09-09' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2021-03-01' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/13022/20210301-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-guided_meditation_being_aware.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: 'Guided Meditation: Being Aware' url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13022 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: ev_oeXP_mc0 imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Guided Meditation: Being Aware' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev_oeXP_mc0 --- # Guided Meditation: Being Aware - [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: Being Aware](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13022) Good morning, and welcome to the first meditation session of the retreat that some of you are doing. And for those of you on YouTube, good morning, good day, and welcome to this Monday morning meditation. For this morning's meditation, I would like to emphasize the word _awareness_. Sometimes I like to think of the word _awareness_ as a synonym for _mindfulness_. I'll talk more about that, but what's interesting about _awareness_ is we talk about _being_ aware, we don't talk about _doing_ aware. Someone doesn't say, "I'm awaring," they say, "I am aware." I associate _being aware_, or _awareness_, to something like _hearing_ versus _listening_. Hearing is something that we can just hear; those of us who have the ability to hear, we can hear something without intending to hear it. The sound arises in the ear—maybe a loud sound nearby—and we hear it. If we're curious about it, then we turn our attention to it and we listen to it. Listening being the active and intentional quality of what we do with our capacity to hear. So, _I am aware_ is equivalent to hearing. We can be aware without intending to be aware. We can be aware without directing the attention with our interest and our intentionality. When we practice mindfulness, we're bridging these two aspects: the non-intentional and the intentional, the directed and the non-directed, the doing and the not-doing. The word _awareness_ gives a little bit more emphasis on just allowing awareness to operate. So rather than _doing_ awareness, we are _being_ aware. As such, awareness is closer to a state of mind than it is to an activity of mind, in particular, mental action. As important as mental actions can be, they are just a subset of what awareness can be aware of. So with this _anapanasati_[^1], mindfulness of breathing, as it develops, as we settle in, we're getting closer to the state of awareness than we are to moments of knowing, moments of what is sometimes called mindfulness. Take a meditation posture and find a posture, adjusting your body to a posture that is suitable for you to be aware in a calm and relaxed way. For this purpose, it's helpful if the posture is relatively comfortable, relatively relaxed. Then it's helpful to settle into your body, and one of the ways of doing that is to take a few long, slow, deep breaths at the beginning of a sitting. The deep inhales are maybe three-quarters of a full in-breath—nothing that would tire you out or strain you, but something that would allow you to feel your body more fully. Breathing in, that full breath not only fills your body but energizes it a little bit in a good way. Then, letting your breath return to normal, feel your body. Let your awareness, your attention, roam around your body, maybe in its own way, to the places where there are some tensions or holdings. As you exhale, relax. Soften the places of holding. Perhaps it's a little bit in the muscles of the belly; softening the belly. Maybe there's some softening around the front of the chest. Softening in the shoulders. And softening in the face. Perhaps also there's some possibility on the exhale to relax the thinking mind, maybe around where the brain is, or are there places in the body where thinking has its tentacles? As you exhale, quiet the thinking mind. Allow the thinking mind maybe to think slower. There's no hurry here in meditation. There's no requirement to think of anything else besides the meditation. If you're thinking about the meditation, maybe you can do so quietly, calmly, slowly, in ways that are clearly supportive of the meditation. Maybe the thinking is kind thoughts about turning the attention to the breathing. Thoughts about being present for how the body experiences breathing. Simple thoughts of receiving the inhale. Thoughts of being present for the inhale just as it begins, letting there be a receptive quality where the body's ability to be aware, to sense, and to feel receives the inhale. Maybe receiving it as an upwelling feeling of energy, of movement, of sensations. And then as you exhale, to release with the exhale. There is a letting go in the exhale. Allow yourself to exhale, allowing the release. Inhaling and receiving the inhale in awareness. Allowing the exhale to release within awareness. Not so much focusing on the breathing, but more allowing breathing to focus itself in the middle of awareness. As if breathing is received, like the waves received by the beach, which the beach then releases or allows to wash back, roll back into the ocean. Across the beach of awareness come the waves of inhaling and exhaling. Regardless now of what you're thinking about—what you're thinking about is less important than noticing it as activity of the mind. Whatever the activity, the actions, the energetics of the mind are, see if you can let that relax. Let the activities of the mind relax into a calmness of the mind. Set a place of subtleness: a calm body, a calm mind. Then, we are always aware, we're always conscious. There's always some degree of awareness going on. See if you can allow for a state of being aware, or state of awareness, that is more naturally there. It doesn't require a doing, but more an allowing to be aware. Allowing awareness is close to being in a receptive state, receiving experiences as they occur in the present. And with breathing at the center of it all, a receptive awareness that also receives breathing, receives the experience of inhaling and exhaling. Breathing is a rhythm that reminds us to be receptive in the awareness, not to fixate on anything or get caught in thought. The rhythm of breathing received in awareness. In a sense, a rhythm that keeps awareness open and receptive. So we stay closer to a place of quiet receptivity. A state not dominated by thinking, a state more characterized by receptive awareness of what is. A state of awareness that we repeatedly allow for, repeatedly return to, resting in receptive awareness. There is a way of being aware where awaring is not doing, but more being. More a state that we're in: a state of awareness. Within that state, we can register, be aware of, many different things that occur, but those things can occur without intentionality from us, without desire, without making something happen. To relax, allow for that form of the state of awareness. Allow yourself to be aware. In that allowing, allow the experience of breathing to remind you to stay receptive, to be allowing of what is. If we can recognize awareness as a state—a state of awareness, like a state of mind or state of being—that allows us to be content in that state, or to rest in that state. To allow ourselves to be receptive in that state of awareness. Perhaps a state of awareness where we're not actively involved with what we know. We're not for things or against things. We're not trying to fix things or get away from anything. There's a willingness to just be aware of whatever is happening. A state of awareness that's receptive and open. And with a state of awareness, resting in it, content in it, you might bring to mind or include in that awareness now some of the people that will be part of your life today. The community of people on the retreat, or those who are not on the retreat. In whatever communities you might be in today, whether personally or on some form of communication technology. For a few moments, allow for a sensitivity of awareness of those people. That's only possible if we rest in awareness, allow them to exist in awareness while we rest in the awareness or remain receptive in that awareness, where we can be aware of people without doing anything or needing to respond, to act, just aware. Staying close to this way of being receptively aware of others, just being aware of them—not paying attention to them, but being aware, simple awareness—perhaps there in that awareness you can now tap into your goodwill for others or your wish for their welfare, your well-wishing of others. Let that well-wishing radiate from you, glow from you, flow from you. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings everywhere be free. --- [^1]: **Anapanasati:** A Pali term meaning "mindfulness of breathing," a core meditation practice in Buddhism focusing on the breath to develop mindfulness and concentration.