--- ai_generation_date: '2026-08-24' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2020-06-17' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/11557/20200617-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-guided_meditation_compassionate_in_meditation.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: 'Guided Meditation: Compassionate in Meditation' url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11557 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: p6TM39LfwEA imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Guided Meditation: Compassionate in Meditation' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6TM39LfwEA --- # Guided Meditation: Compassionate in Meditation - [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: Compassionate in Meditation](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11557) Oh, good day. Here we are again. For those of you who might be new, welcome. You are joining a community that has a little bit of momentum with sitting together these mornings for the last few months. Many feel quite supported, and certainly, I feel supported by all of you who are sitting here and participating. I appreciate very much the chance to come to IMC[^1] these mornings, sit with you, and offer the Dharma[^2]. Thank you. Yesterday, I talked about using breathing—and it could be any object for meditation, it doesn't have to be breathing, but that's the reference point I use. If that's not your thing, then just substitute whatever your meditation practice is. But we can use the breathing as a microcosm that represents or relates to the other areas of your life. Often, the very subtle attitudes we have about life, ourselves, and our experience appear in our meditation. Sometimes they appear in obvious ways, but also sometimes in very, very subtle ways. Something as subtle as how we wander off in thought—the attitude we have about wandering off, getting lost, and beginning again with the breathing—can contain a whole slew of different attitudes, reactions, reactivity, and opportunities to find and support a way of being that's useful for meditation, but also useful for the rest of our lives. We don't want meditation to be its own little unique domain where it helps us feel good, with no relationship to the rest of our life. Meditation is a training ground. It is a place to learn how to be with ourselves, with our experience, and with our relationship to our experience, that we then want to translate or apply to the rest of our life. The line between meditation and non-meditation is rather arbitrary. Looking at this issue of when the mind gets involved in thoughts: maybe you get lost in thoughts for a little while and you notice that. What happens then? What is the attitude? What is the reaction you have to it, and what's the opportunity there? Yesterday, I talked about having the return to breathing—starting again with the breathing—be something which feels good to you. It should be nice, peaceful, and harmonious; not aversive to what had just happened, not bouncing back on the breath. Experimenting with that little thing can just be a nice way to practice. Today, I'd like to suggest something in addition to that. If your mind gets involved in something—thoughts, ideas, fantasies, conversations, or images of things—which you then feel, to use an intentionally vague word, _bad_ about. You feel bad about yourself for having those thoughts, feelings, motivations, or fantasies. Maybe having those thoughts and ideas represents some kind of difficulty or challenge you have, something that warrants some compassion, kindness, care, or forgiveness. The very fact that you're having some thoughts that are difficult to have, and things that you feel uncomfortable with, might actually be a little bit of a sign of good health. It is healthy to feel uncomfortable with certain things which may be unhealthy, unskillful, or unethical to have as thoughts. But in meditation, when those kinds of things occur, the art of meditation is using this microcosm as a way of approaching life differently. We can have some compassion for ourselves—compassion for the difficulty of life, the momentum of the difficulty, and how it manifests in these reactivities or active ways we have. And so today, as you sit and meditate with your breathing and you find yourself wandering off, you might check in and see if that's an opportunity for a few moments of compassion, care, kindness, or maybe a kind of forgiveness of yourself. Treat yourself as if you're a friend, or even a kind stranger, who will really care for you. Make room and hold yourself in open care, rather than reacting in negative ways and seeing what you did as making you a bad person. In little ways, then, you can use the ways in which you wander off in thought to begin to train yourself to see with compassion. Especially if you can feel, in wandering off in thought, that there is a little bit of suffering in that—either in the reactivity or in those thoughts themselves. Receive and be with what's happening with compassion, and then return to your breathing, letting that return be peaceful and nourishing. We're using that little piece of wandering off as a training ground. Please don't wander off intentionally so that you can train, but use this opportunity when you wander off, before you come back, to have some compassion there if it's warranted, and then begin again in a kind way. ## Guided Meditation So, gently close your eyes and take a few long, slow, deep breaths to begin the process with the breathing. Maybe connect to some compassion, some capacity to hold the challenges, the difficulties, and the suffering with care and kindness. With the idea that we're working towards the alleviation of suffering—this wonderful path of freedom from suffering—it's good to know you're on the path. And then perhaps relax, and release the holdings of the body. Release yourself into your breathing. There is a way that sometimes we can drop deep into the body. We can be grounded deep in the body, centered here, and from this kind of depth within, experience the breathing. Experience the rhythm of breathing. Relaxing the mind so the mind, too, is allowed to settle. The mind, too, can settle deep into the body, breathing. And then continue by valuing the opportunity to be with your breathing, hanging in there. But when the mind wanders off—if you are caught in thoughts or reactivity or some unkind way of being as you sit here, even if you're concerned or thinking about some difficulty—use the opportunity for compassion, care, kindness, even forgiveness. And then begin again with your breathing. Notice how you are. Notice any reactivity, or ways in which you think or react that are painful or harsh. It may even be the way you reacted to wandering off in thought. See if you can gaze upon all this kindly. Have compassion and forgiveness for yourself—not to let yourself off the hook, but to see it all kindly so you're not weighed down by it. Then you can begin again with your breathing kindly, supportively, in a nourishing way. So the whole experience of beginning again is a wonderful microcosm for what's possible in life. Generally, the more tense we are, the more our capacity for compassion, kindness, and care gets lost or covered over. And the more at ease we are, the more the body is relaxed, the more likely that we can feel our capacity or emotions of kindness, compassion, and care—perhaps even feeling it radiating from the muscles of our body, radiating from the heart. In these last couple of minutes of the sitting, perhaps for the next three breaths as you exhale, see if you can relax a bit more. Exhale and settle into greater ease, physical ease, relaxation. Exhale and perhaps open up to your capacity for kindness, love, care, and compassion. Then you might think ahead for the day that you have, and maybe plan ahead a bit to see how you can, for this day, be a little bit more compassionate to the world and to others than you would have been otherwise. Not that you are setting a high standard that now you have to go into the world filled with compassion, but perhaps it's only five percent more compassionate than you would have been otherwise if you hadn't thought about it. Coming out of this meditation, perhaps you can think ahead into the day and consider in what circumstance you might be prepared to have a bit more of a compassionate, kind attitude towards others and to the world. So the meditation clearly has a relationship to how you're going to live for this day. And may it be that our collective meditating here today, through all of us, helps the world become a better place. That more people feel at ease, feel safe, and are the recipients of kindness and support, so this world becomes a better place for all beings. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. --- [^1]: **IMC:** Insight Meditation Center, a Buddhist meditation center in Redwood City, California, where Gil Fronsdal is a guiding teacher. [^2]: **Dharma:** A Sanskrit term (Dhamma in Pali) that in Buddhism refers to the teachings of the Buddha and the universal truth of how things are.