--- ai_generation_date: '2026-09-06' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2021-02-26' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/13000/20210226-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-guided_meditation_delight.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: 'Guided Meditation: Delight' url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13000 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: gzzFwIS84Rg imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Guided Meditation: Delight' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzzFwIS84Rg --- # Guided Meditation: Delight - [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: Delight](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13000) Warm greetings from Redwood City. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful blue day, a blue sky. The vast blue sky with no clouds in it is sometimes seen as a metaphor or analogy for our mind. To begin appreciating the sense of settledness, wholeness, and clarity that can come through meditation practice evokes a sense of delight, satisfaction, or being pleased in this opportunity to sit with oneself and meditate. That is the tenth step of these sixteen steps: being pleased, deeply satisfied, or delighted. The word can mean rejoice. There's something about stepping back a little bit and appreciating this opportunity to meditate. As we become more centered in the moment with ourselves, becoming more whole here, there is hopefully some deep sense of satisfaction in this process. So here we are. Some of us have been doing this for a while now, so take your usual meditation posture, or the one that is right for now, and gently close your eyes. Even if you're agitated about something, if you're sitting in your regular meditation posture, is there something comforting about doing so? Something settling or familiar that feels good to be in this posture? If you've been doing this little ritual of taking a few deep breaths at the beginning, is that also becoming a little bit comforting, settling, or familiar that you can settle into? Take a few long, slow, deep breaths, and as you exhale, relax. Maybe a long, slow exhale. Settling in here. The deep inhale is a chance to feel the fullness of the body, the width and breadth of the body, or the wholeness of the body. It is always more whole than the parts, always greater than the particular places of discomfort or distress that we might have. Take a deep breath in that spreads the awareness through the body so the awareness encompasses more than any particular issues we have. Exhale to let go of the intensity of some of the thoughts and concerns. Soften and quiet the mind. Soften and quiet the heart and your inner life. Settling in. Then breathing normally. To some degree, the process of meditation is a process of coming to a kind of wholeness where all things are held together without any divide within us. Everything has a place. The relaxing of the body moves in that direction. On the exhale, relaxing the muscles of the face. On the exhale, relaxing the muscles of the shoulder. On the exhale, relaxing in the chest. And on the exhale, relaxing the belly, softening the belly. Perhaps on the exhale, there's a way of releasing the whole body. Releasing the way we might be bracing ourselves. Releasing the way we're leaning ahead of ourselves. Then feeling the breathing for a few moments, familiarizing yourself with your breathing, the experience of it. Whatever pleasure, joy, or well-being that might be here, even if it's in the cracks between other things, breathe with a pleasure. Breathe with a well-being. A tingling in the body, a warmth, a glow. A feeling of pleasure in the breathing. Or as you relax, a kind of spread of energy through the body that has a pleasant quality. Breathe with what is pleasant. As you exhale, relax the mental activity, quieting your thinking. Relaxing any tension or contraction in the thinking mind. Maybe relaxing the thinking mind on the exhale, and letting the mind become broader, wider, and quieter. It is kind of like the waves on a vast lake: the waves quiet down and the surface of the lake becomes still and quiet. The flatness and calm stretching wide out towards the horizon, so the mind gets quieter. Then breathe with your mind state, noticing the general mood or the atmosphere of your inner life. Breathing with it, allowing it to be the way it is, but being mindful of it as you breathe. Maybe appreciating that a mood or a state is broad and wide. Maybe it has no boundaries. It is soft, transparent, and translucent. That mind state is not a solid thing; it has no weight, and maybe no color. Maybe appreciating the insubstantiality of the mind state. Breathing with it, breathing through it. Rather than letting your mind drift off in thought, let your mind be concerned more with the breathing. Breathing in the middle of this wider whole of body, feelings, and mind state. Appreciating the breadth and width of this whole. Is there anything about sitting here now, if you really settle in and truly connect to the direct experience of meditating, that has a feeling of satisfaction or goodness to it? Something that's pleasing, or something that makes you feel glad or delighted? Being delighted in being on the path of practice, having a practice, being settled, and not caught up in the busyness of the day. Breathe with what is pleasing. Not so much the ideas of it, but maybe the ideas give rise to an embodied feeling of satisfaction, joy, or delight in this experience of moving towards wholeness, settledness, ease, and more peacefulness. Breathe with that satisfaction, that delight, in a way that helps the mind become more quiet. A quiet breathing with the inner delight and satisfaction of being here now, instead of being caught up in activities, concerns, and thoughts. The goodness of just being here meditating. The tenth step of Anapanasati[^1] is breathing in, delighting the mind; breathing out, delighting the mind. How might you look out onto the world with eyes of delight? How might you look upon the world with eyes of kindness and love? How might you look out from your heart, sharing delight, sharing joy as if it's food for the hungry? As if it is a missing resource in our lives to know delight, to know joy. Look upon others, having delight in them. Appreciating others with respect and love. And may it be that through our delight, appreciation, and respect for others, we concern ourselves with their happiness, their safety, their capacity to be at peace in this world, and their freedom. May our delight, our joy, and our appreciation of the beauty and wonderfulness of others be contagious and support others. So that all beings may be happy. All beings may be safe. All beings may be peaceful. All beings may be free. May our delight and joy in the existence of others support that. --- [^1]: **Anapanasati:** A Pali word meaning "mindfulness of breathing." It is a core meditation practice in Buddhism, commonly taught using a framework of sixteen steps.