--- ai_generation_date: '2026-08-28' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2020-05-13' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/11381/20200513-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-guided_meditation_awareness_of_the_present.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: 'Guided Meditation: Awareness of the Present' url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11381 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: metSZMk1yy8 imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Guided Meditation: Awareness of the Present' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=metSZMk1yy8 --- # Guided Meditation: Awareness of the Present - [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: Awareness of the Present](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11381) Good morning. It's a pleasure to see the names and the greetings here. It's such a friendly event to see the good mornings in the various emojis, and the good wishes. Thank you for this wonderful experience each morning. ## Introduction As we start our meditation today, I'd like to offer a couple of introductory comments. When I was practicing in Burma, my teacher liked the analogy of looking at a line of black ants in the distance. He said from a distance, it might just seem like a continuous stream of blackness, like a thread. But if you get close, you see that there are little gaps between the ants. In fact, they're discrete ants, not one long black cord. It's a little bit similar to the idea that the mind sees continuity where, in fact, there is no continuity; it is discrete ants. It's a little bit like the idea of seeing a fire wand. If someone twirls it around in a big circle fast enough, we'll see a circle, even though we know the wand is only in one place at a time. But the mind kind of constructs the totality of the circle. The Buddha says the same thing about our minds—that our minds will construct, in some ways, our images and ideas of what reality is. He uses the example of sewing things together: desires, thoughts, and stories sew the discrete parts of our experience together into a story, into a sense of continuity, where actually what there is are discrete events themselves. This week we're talking about suffering. These weeks we are exploring the Four Noble Truths[^1], and suffering is one of those things that can exist in a discrete way. But we also sew it together; we react to it, we make stories out of it, and we think about how it was yesterday and how it will be tomorrow. Moment to moment, as we exist, we can often live as if, _Oh, this is forever, this is permanent._ We might logically know it's not going to be that way, but there can be a sense that suffering is just one mass of suffering that continues. What mindfulness meditation begins to do as we settle in is that we stop sewing it together. We stop seeing the continuity and start seeing the discreteness of each thing that occurs. This is a capacity to just respond and allow things to be as they are in the open palm of awareness. Offering the response of just being aware of what's there in a simpler and simpler awareness, we begin leaving things alone. We begin quieting down the sewing action of the mind, the part of the mind that ties things together into some kind of continuity. There's a whole different opportunity for equanimity and peace that's possible when the sewing has stopped. We just see each thing in and of itself as it is: discrete, as if it's just a particular event of this moment right now. We don't tie it together with past and future, just this moment. So that will be sitting in the background, I hope, for this morning's meditation. ## Guided Meditation So if you could take a meditative posture and gently close your eyes. Maybe wiggle around a little bit in your body. Stretch side-to-side, and rock forward and back to find yourself in your body, and also centered in your body. This helps the body gather together in a little bit more harmony. And then take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Gentle breaths, maybe even loving breaths. This is a way of reminding your body, reminding your heart, and reminding your mind that here is where the action is. Here and now is where the world of meditation is found. Exhale long as a way of relaxing. Not forcing the exhale, but relaxing with it so it extends longer and fuller, settling as you exhale. And then let the breathing return to normal. Perhaps also just more generally soften and relax the body. The more tension there is in the body, the more tendency there is to think. The less tension there is, the easier it is for the mind to relax, for thinking to be softer and gentler. It's easy enough to do. You can think quieter, think in a quieter voice, or maybe think slower. For a few moments, maybe think about the immediacy of your experience, almost like you're giving yourself meditation instructions to connect to your present moment experience. And then, within your body, as part of your bodily experience, become aware of your breathing. See if you can experience the inhale as a discrete event, just its own event with no before and after. Just the experience of the body expanding, filling with air, and the pressure that arises. And when the inhale is over, experience the exhale as a discrete event. It might certainly be possible to experience the continuity of inhales and exhales. But for now, as if each inhale is a complete universe unto itself, allow yourself to experience each inhale by itself, and each exhale by itself. Just its own thing. Within the inhale, there are discrete sensations. There are particular sensations that occur at the beginning of the inhale and then disappear near the middle of the inhale. There are discrete sensations that occur at the end of the inhale, which disappear as the exhale occurs. Discrete sensations of breathing occur at the different points of exhaling and inhaling. With a very relaxed mind—not trying so hard, not trying at all, almost like the opposite of trying, but still being receptive and very open—experience the particular discrete sensations as they come and go in breathing. Almost as if each sensation is a massage. Each sensation, as it is received in awareness, allows awareness to involve less efforting. The mindfulness muscle relaxes in favor of receiving, allowing things to occur. The thinking mind becomes quieter still, so it can better feel and sense the experiences. And then, as we continue sitting here, if anything occurs to you that even remotely could be considered a form of suffering, stress, annoyance, pain, or discomfort, you might try to hold it in awareness. Hold it like you are holding it in the soft palm of awareness, completely allowing it to be that way. See if you can adjust yourself and settle yourself to not make stories, or to not have desires in relationship to it. Do not sew it together with ideas of past and future, but simply allow this uncomfortable situation or feeling to exist discretely and simply. As you do so, you might notice that it's not really continuous. It comes and goes, arises and passes. Our awareness of it, our attention to it, also changes. One moment we're experiencing it, another moment we're thinking about something, or we're hearing a sound and we hear the sound instead. We might believe the discomfort is continuous because we're sewing it together. The mind is fast, like the spinning of the fire wand. But as the mind gets quieter, and as we become stiller and less reactive, we start seeing the moment-to-moment discontinuity. We see how each momentary experience, allowed to be itself, has some quality within it of inconstancy, of change—some way in which it comes and goes. Allow things to be themselves, only being aware without thoughts and desires tying them together. It is not so much searching for discrete experiences; it is continuing to soften, relax, and open awareness. Allow awareness to become quieter, and the mind to become quieter, so that awareness is more receptive and more allowing. It is not directing the show, but a little bit more like being the audience to the show, observing the coming and going of phenomena. And then, as we come to the end of the sitting... For you at this time, sitting here, what is the opposite of suffering? What is the opposite of whatever emotional or mental discomfort that you experience now or these days? What is the wholesome opposite? And do you have a reference point within for this? Do you have a place in your body where there's some sense of happiness, or joy, or peace? Some sense of calm or well-being? Is there some corner of the heart or the mind where the opposite of dukkha[^2]—the stress or suffering—exists for you? Can you gently—like you're blowing gently on the flames of a fire to make it glow more[^3]—can you gently wish yourself well? Wish yourself more of this well-being, even if it's just a little spark within. Maybe as you breathe, breathe through the place in your body, your heart, or your mind that might be the home for well-being. Bring to yourself goodwill, generosity, friendliness, and care. You yourself are an appropriate recipient of your own care, your own wish for this capacity for well-being to grow and spread throughout your body, through your heart, and through your mind. And to whatever degree, even if it is just a small little ember, may it be that your well-being, your knowledge, your experience of calm or peace, be a place from which you offer kindness, care, and goodwill to the world around you. May the glow of your kindness spread throughout you, and from you, out into the world. --- [^1]: **Four Noble Truths:** The foundational framework of Buddhist teachings, outlining the truth of suffering (dukkha), its origin, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation. [^2]: **Dukkha:** A Pali word often translated as "suffering," "stress," or "unsatisfactoriness." [^3]: Original transcript said "like your blow again tea blowing on the flames," corrected to "like you're blowing gently on the flames" based on context.