--- ai_generation_date: '2026-09-05' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2020-09-08' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/12069/20200908-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-guided_meditation_breathing_with_emotions.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: 'Guided Meditation: Breathing with Emotions' url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12069 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: heGlAStzUqw imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Guided Meditation: Breathing with Emotions' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heGlAStzUqw --- # Guided Meditation: Breathing with Emotions - [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: Breathing with Emotions](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12069) Greetings. Happy to be here. The teacher Shunryu Suzuki Roshi[^1], the founder of San Francisco Zen Center, once was asked to explain Buddhism, and he answered in three words. He said, "Not always so. Not always so." And there are many things that are sometimes one way, but not always so, and one of those things is our emotions. We can have all kinds of ideas about our emotions, predictions about them. We can be influenced by them to think certain ways. But maybe it's not always so. Maybe we don't really understand our emotions fully. Or we don't understand fully what they are as a process, what they are as something which is unfolding through time, because of the ideas we have—"this is what it is" or "this is what it means." In meditation, one of the interesting and valuable forms of mindfulness is to bring together mindfulness of emotions with mindfulness of breathing. And mindfulness of breathing[^2] is kind of like a constant. To stay with mindfulness of breathing is to learn the art of not investing our attention in our thinking, where all the ideas, opinions, and predictions are, and all the stories that fuel our emotions. And so, we stay with the breathing not to stop us from thinking, but to stop us from being stuck in our thoughts. Let the thinking recede into the background, or not really be what we're focusing on. It keeps us fluid. It keeps us relaxed and keeps us from being stuck. The same thing applies to emotions. Staying with the constancy of breathing also keeps us from getting tripped up, stuck, or fixated on our emotions. It can also help us from being overwhelmed by the emotions because of this constant stability, this constant ballast. It's like walking on a long hike, taking one step after another, one step after the other. It doesn't really matter what we think or what we feel about the hike; we just know we have to get to the end, one step, one step. So, just stay with the breathing. That's not meant to be a way of ignoring our emotions, but a way of helping our emotions not get stuck, or helping us not get stuck with them. It keeps things going and fluid. It's almost like the cycles of breathing—breathing in, breathing out—keep everything flowing and moving, as it can often do. So, one of the interesting things to do, when we have some ability to be with mindfulness of breathing (like we did two weeks ago) and mindfulness of thinking (as we did last week), is to combine mindfulness of breathing with mindfulness of emotions. One of the ways of doing that is to breathe as we're staying with the rhythm of breathing. To breathe _with_ our emotions, our mood, our mental states, our attitudes, whatever is predominant. Just breathe with it, like you're accompanying it. But by breathing with it, the attention is mostly with the breathing as a little bit of protection from getting involved in the stories, ideas, attachments, and resistances we have to the emotions. Just allow the emotions to be there and breathe with them. The attention can go to both places. The other way, somewhat related to that, is to imagine that as you breathe, you're breathing _through_ the emotion. That helps if you can identify where the emotion is most expressed in the body. Find the place that is most representative of the emotion in the body, and just breathe through that. Let the in-breath and out-breath flow in and out through that place. That similarly can keep you from getting caught in the emotion, reactive to it, coming to conclusions about it, or creating more stories about it. It's a way of settling and relaxing, just being with it, and allowing the emotion to be as it wants. Let it move itself. Letting the motion of emotion move itself. So, that was a lot of words about it. I'll try to guide you with it now. ## Guided Practice Taking a meditative posture. And if it's easy enough to do, adopt a meditative posture that helps you breathe more easily. Whatever that might be. For some people, it's sitting up a little straighter so the chest opens up a little bit, certainly so that we're not somehow collapsed into the chest and restricting the breath. If you're sitting in a chair, maybe lift yourself off the chair a little bit with your hands and arms, and then settle back. Sit up straight so the chest is a little more open. Gently closing your eyes. Relaxing the body. As you exhale, softening the muscles of the face. Releasing holding in the face, tightness, as you exhale. Softening the shoulders. And as you soften the shoulders, let the attitude of softening be one of care, kindness, and gentleness. Relaxing the shoulders, almost as if the shoulders feel your good will. Softening and relaxing the chest, and relaxing the belly. And then finding some place in your body where it's comfortable for you to hang out with your breathing, with the experience the body has of breathing. Take a few moments to soften and relax in the area of your body where you experience breathing, and then the areas around that place. Then maybe also experience some of the movement and changes of breathing. Can you also soften and relax there? Taking some moments to just be simple with your breathing. Almost like you're being with breathing, or you are being breathing. You're becoming your breathing. Relaxing and softening the thinking mind, the thinking. Letting go of thoughts as you exhale. A simplicity of being, sitting here breathing. And then as you continue breathing, also become aware of how you're feeling. Your emotions, mental state, mood. It could be quite subtle: a simple calmness, quietude. It could be some strong emotion. Allow your emotion to be there. Give yourself complete permission to feel whatever emotional state is present, as if this meditation is the safest and most appropriate time to feel any emotion that's there, without being involved in stories about it. Just the felt sense, just the physical experience of the emotion. And then breathe with the emotion. Breathing is accompanying it, or breathe through it. You're staying grounded in the breathing, in the rhythm and the cycle of breathing in and breathing out, like walking and taking one step after the other without pause. One inhale, one exhale, with and through however you're feeling. Leaving your feelings and your emotions alone, except for breathing with them, breathing through them, so that you're centered on your breathing but inclusive of how you feel. You don't have to identify what you're feeling. All you do now is breathe through however it is. Breathe with it. Letting yourself feel whatever you're feeling, but stay with the continuity of breathing. Perhaps with the help of the breathing, you can have a relaxed attitude however you're feeling, allowing it to unfold or to be as it is. Your emotions, your mood, whatever way you're feeling. Include it in your awareness, hold it, or allow it to be in the field of awareness. But at the heart of it all, center yourself on breathing. Almost as if breathing happens at the middle center of how you feel. And then as you come to the end of the sitting, see how breathing can also move through your heart. Massaging the heart area, helping the heart area relax and open. And maybe breathe with whatever capacity, whatever degree of compassion, kindness, or love that's available for you, that you might feel within your body. Breathe with those feelings, however small they might be. Breathe with them. And imagine that as you breathe out, you're spreading your care, your love, your compassion out across the lands[^3]. And then as you breathe in, you're breathing in the troubles of the world, the sufferings of people everywhere. As long as you stay with the rhythm—breathing in and then breathing it out—love is transforming it, offering welfare and happiness to all beings on your exhale. Keeping the heart open, so that the people of the world can feel your care and your presence, at least from the vantage point of your meditation. You're willing to be a witness to the world, and to see the world through the eyes of your care, your love. And may it be that your love, your kindness, your care, your desire for the welfare of others spreads from you through the words you speak, the words you write, through the deeds and actions that you do, and through the thoughts that you have. May it be that all beings feel safe, that all beings be happy, that all beings be peaceful, that all beings be free. --- [^1]: **Shunryu Suzuki Roshi:** (1904–1971) A Soto Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States, and the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. [^2]: Original transcript said "microsoft breathing", corrected to "mindfulness of breathing" based on context. [^3]: Original transcript said "lens", corrected to "lands" based on context.