--- ai_generation_date: '2026-08-25' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2020-08-10' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/11842/20200810-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-guided_meditation_perseverance_in_each_moment.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: 'Guided Meditation: Perseverance in Each Moment' url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11842 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: nzhUhV5Ajpk imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Guided Meditation: Perseverance in Each Moment' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzhUhV5Ajpk --- # Guided Meditation: Perseverance in Each Moment - [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._ ## Introduction Good morning, and welcome to our meditation and our time together here. I appreciate very much your attendance, your involvement, your practice, and your interest. I hope that what we do here today spreads benefit widely out into the world. Meditation is a little bit like going for a long, long walk, maybe up a mountain, where the continuity of each step is what will get us to the destination. We focus on one step, and then the next, and then the next, especially if the meditation—if the walking—is difficult. Or, I used to row boats when I was small. Rowing across the North Sea sometimes in Norway, one paddle at a time, rowing and rowing. In the same way with meditation, to have something like the breath as the focus of attention and to engage just one breath: one inhale, one exhale, one after the other. Or if you don't use the breathing, some people will support that continuity of one step at a time with mental noting—a very gentle, soft, relaxed note of what you're noticing: hearing, seeing, touching, sensations, warmth, coolness, whatever it might be. This speaks to the idea of continuity in practice—this simple, step-by-step continuity. A continuity where we don't allow ourselves to be interrupted by our criticisms, our disappointments, our discouragements, our expectations, or our fantasies about what should or could be. But just whatever is going on, keep the next step going. Keep the next step going. It's a little bit like letting a lot of thoughts and a lot of different things just fall away. Fall away. Don't pick things up. Don't get involved in a lot of thinking and thoughts, and maintain just a kind of simple, gentle continuity. Sometimes in difficult times, that is known as perseverance—a gentle perseverance in practice. And this taking refuge in the simplicity of this breath, this inhale, this exhale, this beginning of an inhale[^1], this ending of an inhale—this is what builds[^2] momentum and carries the day, and teaches us so much about letting go, staying open, and staying present. It can be very healing to enter into this very simple world of _just now, just now, just now_. ## [Guided Meditation: Perseverance in Each Moment](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11842) So, take a meditation posture. For those of you who have been doing this for a while, hopefully, you have a posture which is _your_ posture. Settling in, perhaps closing your eyes, and perhaps taking a few long, gentle breaths. Feeling your rib cages expand—back rib cage, front rib cage—as you're breathing deeply. Breathe in deeply, and relax as you exhale. You don't have to vocalize anything, but exhale maybe with the feeling or the idea that it's like a big _ah_, a kind of settling in, relaxing, coming home. And then, let your breathing return to normal and scan through your body to see where in your body you can relax. Maybe starting at the top, maybe on your forehead and eyes. Maybe you can soften around the mouth, the jaws, relaxing the shoulders as you exhale, perhaps giving in to the pull of gravity. And then softening in the belly. A soft, gentle, relaxed belly. Perhaps someplace in the belly, or somewhere else in your body that relaxes and is soft—that softness, that relaxation can be the reference for perseverance, for continuity of practice, for moment-to-moment being present for the experience. So that the way continuity is cultivated is both dedicated—a real dedication—but also with a relaxation, an ease. A gentle perseverance. And then, letting your breathing be normal, establish yourself on the body's experience of breathing. Continuity is not measured by how long you can be present with the breathing; it is measured by how you start fresh with each inhale and each exhale. As if each inhale is itself the complete practice. Each exhale is itself the complete practice. There's nothing that needs to be thought about beyond this inhale, this exhale. And when the mind wanders off in thought, don't be troubled by that, but also don't give in to it. Come back to the next step. Take the next step with the next inhale, the next exhale, the next moment. In a sense, letting your thoughts just wash right by[^3]. Thinking, washing right by. Maybe like rowing a boat, just letting the water pass by to take your next stroke, your next paddle. One breath. Letting each inhale be the whole inhale. Just this. Entering into the simplicity of this moment and this moment, as if it's the only moment, the complete moment. Continuity is really a matter of these full moments flowing together. This inhale. This exhale. With no concern for before and after. Just the fullness, the immediacy of this moment. Relaxed, open, receptive, dedicated. Perhaps relaxing the thinking muscle. Relaxing the pressure and tension to think, so there's a kind of calmness to just breathing. Just this inhale and exhale. ## Closing Dedication And then, as we come to the end of this sitting, may we remember today to have patience. The kind of patience where we don't give in to anger and annoyance, we don't give in to discouragement and despair. And instead, the kind of patience that allows us to stay close to compassion, to stay close to friendliness and care for others and for ourselves. Let us remember to be patient with all things that are difficult, because we remember that there are more important things to do. There is compassion. There is liberation. There is our capacity and possibility of moving towards and into greater freedom and care for the world. This life of ours is so important, and we have so much to offer that it's well worth being patient, so that the best in us can be shared with the world. May all beings be happy. May all beings be healthy. May all beings be at peace. May all beings be free. And may we, at least in small ways, contribute to this possibility for others. Maybe for the people that we have encounters with today, may it be that we are friendly, and supportive, and safe for those that we meet. --- [^1]: Original transcript said "i'd have been inhaled at", corrected to "of an inhale" based on context. [^2]: Original transcript said "carries bill's", corrected to "builds" based on context. [^3]: Original transcript said "wash right back right your thought", corrected to "wash right by" based on context.