--- ai_generation_date: '2026-08-13' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2020-09-03' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/12048/20200903-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-guided_meditation_the_space_around_thoughts.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: 'Guided Meditation: The Space Around Thoughts' url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12048 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: vZpMbMiClZs imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Guided Meditation: The Space Around Thoughts' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZpMbMiClZs --- # Guided Meditation: The Space Around Thoughts - [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: The Space Around Thoughts](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12048) So again, greetings. One of the principles of Vipassanā[^1], or mindfulness practice, is developing the capacity to include everything in mindfulness. There is nothing outside of what's acceptable or appropriate to bring the careful, respectful attention of mindfulness to. When there is really no outside and everything is included, I like to think of that as what is sacred. We lose the sacred as soon as we consider what is appropriate for attention and what is outside and excluded from that. Certainly, one of the things that is appropriate for mindfulness is thinking. It is not only about avoiding thoughts or trying not to think. A very important part of human life is thinking, and learning how to be mindful of it is really a life skill. It is also very helpful to get a really good handle on how to be mindful of thinking, and how to see the different components of it as meditation goes deeper and deeper. But one of the things that we could include as part of this wide field of mindfulness is what is just outside of it. What's beyond mindfulness—or rather, what's beyond thinking? What is outside of thinking? Many of us take up residency in our thoughts; that is where we live, and we see the world through the filter of our ideas and thoughts. We don't realize we're living inside it because it is a huge house, in a sense, and it just seems to encompass everything we think about. But once we step out of that house and look back, watch ourselves think, and recognize ourselves thinking—perhaps localize where the thinking is happening, where the inner voice is, or where the projection of the images is—then you can also ask the question: What is underneath thinking? What is above it? What's behind it? What's beyond the edges of it? Then it starts getting more and more interesting in the practice. For one thing, we start realizing that thinking is not the only show in town. In fact, it might not even be the most interesting show in town. The practice can open up to more aspects of experience. So, take a comfortable, alert posture. Allow your eyelids to close, and allow your body to settle. Allow it to settle because you're aware of your body, and you're aware of it in a way that gives space and allowance to whatever you feel in your body. Any natural tendency of the body itself to relax and settle has a chance, has room. Perhaps take a few long, slow, deep breaths as a ritual of connection to yourself, here and now. Take these deep breaths in a way that is gentle, loving, and appreciating. Feel the expansion of the body as you breathe in—the fullness of the lungs, whatever pressure there is in the diaphragm, the movements of the belly as it expands. Perhaps breathing in deeply and feeling the space between the ribs expand as you breathe in. Maybe you feel the expansion of the back, the ribs in the back. And also a caring exhale—long, gentle, not forced so you lose your breath, but a little bit longer than usual, as a releasing in which you also relax your body, settling in. Then, let your breathing return to normal. For three breaths, just tune into whatever is the easy breathing for you. Perhaps move through your body, aware that the body itself is something other than thinking. Scan the body and see if there are any obvious places to relax and settle the body. Maybe from the head, down the face, the shoulders, the chest, and the belly. And then continue to breathe, mindful of breathing. Maybe whenever you are exhaling, you can remember to let go of your thoughts, or let your thoughts recede into the background. If thinking is in the background and not interfering with mindfulness or breathing, there is no need to do anything special with your thoughts—just let them be in the background. Stay with your breathing; settle into your breathing. Then, bring your attention to the edges of your body and sense how you experience the edge of your body. It's probably somewhat indistinct in places. Some places are clear, like where the body is touching an object. But where the body doesn't touch a physical object, the edges of the body might be somewhat indistinct or diffuse. Where the body is not touching anything, just beyond the edges of that body, can you sense or feel the space beyond the body? A spaciousness, a kind of stillness just beyond the edge of the body. Maybe a kind of silence. For a few moments, breathe into the space, or stillness, or silence that is just beyond the edges of your body. Can you also feel that that silence, stillness, and spaciousness is also beyond the edges of your thinking? If you now become aware of yourself thinking—not so much focusing on thinking itself or what you're thinking about, but what is beyond the edges of your thinking. Does thinking fill the whole universe, or is there some space, stillness, or silence just beyond the edges of thinking? Underneath it, to the side of it, above it. Perhaps there is also a little bit of peace, some sense of peace in the space that's just outside of thinking, around it. Breathe through that peace. Breathe with the stillness that is beyond the edges of thinking and the edges of the body, as if the inhale arises and spreads out into that peace, and returns from that peace as you exhale. Is your thinking non-stop, or is there also some peace, space, or stillness between your thoughts? At the end of one thought, before a new thought begins. If you allow your thinking to become quieter and softer, maybe with pauses, can you experience stillness, silence, or spaciousness between your thoughts? Can you breathe with that? Include that in your awareness. When one thought is finished, perhaps it leaves, disappears into that stillness. Sometimes, by feeling the pauses, the gaps between thoughts, perhaps with a sense of space, silence, or stillness between them, there could also be a feeling of peace there. That could be true for what's beyond the edges of our emotions, the edges of our pain and aches, the edges of our body. All things are surrounded, sooner or later, by an absence, by space, or stillness, or silence that is closely related to peace and calm. That creates a wider context for being mindful of body, mind, emotions, and thoughts. How do you experience peace if you don't use your thinking to tell yourself you're peaceful? When our awareness is congested with thoughts, it can be claustrophobic, and there is not much room for anything else. But when our awareness is more expansive than just the thinking, it includes much more of the spaciousness, a sense of peace or allowance, stillness, and silence. That creates space in the heart to feel the joys and sorrows of the world. And for our heart's response to have room—the heart's tenderness, care, love, and a feeling of kinship with all beings. May it be that at the end of meditation, we call on whatever benefits we receive from meditation to open our hearts to the joys and sorrows of the world. Consider the threads that connect us all—how we can create healthy channels and healthy threads by living our lives for the benefit and welfare of others, and for the benefit and welfare of ourselves, as if those two are not different. May all beings be happy. May all beings be healthy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be fully free. --- [^1]: **Vipassanā:** A Pali word often translated as "insight" or "clear-seeing," referring to the meditation practice of cultivating deep understanding of the nature of reality, primarily through mindfulness.