--- ai_generation_date: '2026-09-03' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2021-03-05' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/13078/20210305-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-guided_meditation_enacting_freedom.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: 'Guided Meditation: Enacting Freedom' url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13078 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: iQ5PPqYxl_g imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Guided Meditation: Enacting Freedom' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ5PPqYxl_g --- # Guided Meditation: Enacting Freedom - [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: Enacting Freedom](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/13078) So welcome to this meditation session. A valuable perspective on mindfulness meditation is that it is the enactment of freedom. We are expressing in our mental action our capacity to be free. When we decide to be mindful of something, something as simple as being mindful of the breathing, we are making a choice. When the mind wanders off in thought and you're mindful enough to choose to be mindful rather than wandering off in thought, when you're mindful enough to choose beginning again with your breathing, that's an expression of the freedom to choose. What often happens is that what comes along with that choice, and which obscures the freedom, are ideas—that I didn't do it well enough, I need to do it better, I should try harder, I should strain, push, make more effort. All these other ideas—that I'm a lousy meditator, or someone else is doing it better than me, or the real thing is something different. All these ideas and shoulds get carried along, obscuring the fact that for one little moment, there was an enactment of freedom. The freedom of where our attention can be focused. To appreciate that initial moment—that moment that's independent and free of all the thoughts, agendas, fears that we might have, and all the ideas of self that come along with it—we have to see how it obscures the fact that we have just enacted a small little moment of freedom. If we then choose to investigate, explore, and look more closely at the experience, there also is an enactment of freedom. It's a freedom from our preoccupations, from all our judgments and reactivity. First, to be mindful is a little freedom from preoccupation, from being pulled into a world where we're trapped or not free of thoughts, ideas, fantasies, and judgments. Just to simply be mindful of this, that freedom is enacted a little bit more strongly in the initial moment we decide to look more carefully. That's often obscured because we think we have to be successful. We think it's an exam and we're going to get tested on how well we discover what's there, that there's some magic key that we have to see, and that I have to really strain now and look and analyze. All these ideas obscure the simplicity of the moment of looking more carefully. Looking at "what is this?" is an enactment of freedom. As we see more clearly, the choices we make become an enactment of freedom. The choice not to strain as we look at our breathing. As we meditate on breathing, the choice to turn our attention from the breath to look at how we're being critical of ourselves. Lost in that criticalness, there's no freedom. But in the moment of turning around to look at it—a choice to look at it rather than just going along with it—is also an enactment of freedom. To see what is helpful and not helpful, healthy and not healthy, and to choose the healthy, is an enactment of freedom. And so, to begin appreciating the little hints of freedom in mindfulness, investigation, and effort. As we appreciate it, that appreciation is a pleasure. That appreciation can give rise to a contentment: "Oh, this is the path to freedom. I'm discovering something helpful here." It can give rise to joy—the joy of freely being aware of our experience. And then there can even be affection for the difficult things because we're aware of them with our freedom. So, as these Seven Factors of Awakening[^1] develop, first they develop as little hints, as little intuitions of how they're there. But as we do this meditation, perhaps you can sit here now with an intuition, a recognition of how you enact freedom in choosing to be mindful, investigate, and make effort. And the freedom that's found before all the complexities we bring to those things, in their simplicity. ## Guided Meditation So, to sit, to assume your meditation posture. Some of you probably didn't recognize that in assuming your posture, you were expressing your freedom. There is a free will choice to now adjust your posture. Take a posture, and then gently close your eyes. As you're sitting here with your eyes closed, what is the simplest, freest way that you can allow yourself to be aware of your body? A free will choice, if you want to take it, to become aware of how your body is right now, before preferences, before likes and dislikes. Just aware. And then to take a few long, slow, deep breaths. As you exhale, relax into the posture. Deep breath in. Exhale, relax the whole body, as if relaxing is a homecoming to this posture. And then letting your breathing return to normal. As you exhale, softening the muscles of your forehead and temples. If they don't soften or relax, maybe the awareness of it can be spacious and open. As you exhale, softening around the eyes, the cheeks, the jaws. As you exhale, maybe there can be a relaxation and opening in the back of your neck. The vertebrae just below the skull, can they soften and relax? Softening as you exhale around the collarbones, and then releasing the shoulders. As you exhale, relaxing the chest, the heart center. And then softening the belly in the lower half of your torso. The lower back, the hip area, hip joints, and down your legs. And then gently, calmly, become mindful of your breathing. Can you, as you're mindful of breathing, feel or perceive how the choice to do so—if it's your own—is a small little enactment of freedom? Freedom from the tyranny of thinking. Just mindful for a moment. Receptive to the inhalation, receptive to the movements of the body as you breathe in. Is there some way that simple, receptive awareness has qualities of freedom and independence? For a few moments, maybe awareness free of being hijacked by thoughts, ideas, and judgments. Simple awareness, receptive to breathing. As you exhale, allowing the exhale and allowing awareness. Is there some freedom in awareness that is so simple it just allows the experience to be there? Even if you are thinking and judging, maybe part of the awareness of breathing can feel like there's freedom there. A silent freedom, spacious and open. And very gently exploring the experience of breathing. Feeling it more fully, more clearly. Not dramatically so, just a little more. In that choice to explore and feel it more fully, there's also an enactment of freedom. An enactment to be aware rather than being pulled into thinking. And if you find yourself thinking, and you choose to begin again with your breathing, that's an enactment of effort which might also contain some freedom. Freedom of choice, freedom of where your effort is placed. If, while you're inhaling, you choose to be with the inhale, but then when you exhale, the choice becomes to be with the exhale, it's a simple enactment of liberated effort. To whatever degree, however small, can you feel that your practice enacts freedom, even if you keep getting caught in thought and preoccupied in it? Even so, is there some little corner of awareness, of effort, where you feel your freedom? And to appreciate that, to feel the pleasure of that, maybe even the joy of that. Appreciating our freedom is also an enactment of freedom. Feeling the joy of liberated mindfulness. And then it doesn't matter so much what we're mindful of, because we delight in mindfulness itself. We delight in investigation. There's a delight in this effort or choice that has qualities of freedom in it. And there's freedom in enjoying the joy of freedom as we practice mindfulness. No matter what we're mindful of, there can be a delight in that freedom. If you find yourself caught up in thought, or caught up in anything, if you allow yourself to clearly know that that's the case, there is some quality of freedom in that clear knowing. See if you can build on that freedom, expand that freedom, by doing it again and again. In the last ten minutes of this sitting, perhaps you can feel your way to stay close to where you're free. The freedom which is closely related to simplicity of being. Nothing complicated. Recognizing the simple freedom in choosing to be aware. This simple freedom in seeing what's happening. The freedom to appreciate, to enjoy the simplicity of being that's related to our freedom. ## Resting in Simplicity And then, as we come to the end of the sitting, imagine what it would be like for you to be resting in the simplicity of being. Resting in a freedom of being where you're not caught up in your reactions, your judgments, your criticalness. Not caught up in the shoulds and shouldn'ts, a sense of obligations. Just resting in simple freedom, where you're allowed to be free, you're allowed to be simple and present. And in this way, imagine that you encounter another person who is also free. A person who has no agendas and has no needs at the moment. Who is not living in their judgments or preferences, likes and dislikes. This person is also at rest, at ease in their own simplicity of being, at ease in their freedom. And to sit with this person, you in your freedom and they in their freedom. Freedom where it makes it safe to have goodwill, love, care, and friendliness for the other. And perhaps you can open your heart safely, fully. A meeting of hearts, each of you independent and free, without any need from the other. Content just to sit with each other, appreciating each other. How much can you open your heart, your goodwill, your friendliness in this circumstance? And now imagine that you can do that with others who are not so free. People who come with agendas, preferences, and needs. Imagine that you can rest in your simplicity of being even then. And without them necessarily knowing, to continue with your goodwill, your friendliness. Choosing, freely choosing goodwill. And may it be that we learn through this practice to open our goodwill to all beings equally, while being rooted in our capacity for freedom. Freedom that allows us to return to a simplicity of being. So that we might genuinely feel and think: May it be that all beings be happy. May it be that all beings be safe. May it be that all beings be peaceful. May it be that all beings be free. And may I, in my capacity for freedom, help make this possible. At least radiating from me comes goodwill and safety for others. May all beings be happy. --- [^1]: **Seven Factors of Awakening:** In Buddhist practice, seven mental qualities cultivated for enlightenment: mindfulness, investigation, energy (effort), joy, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity.