This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Body; Introduction to Mindfulness (2 of 5) Body. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Body Sensations; Dharmette: Introduction to Mindfuless (2 of 5) Body - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on December 19, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Body Sensations

Warm greetings from IMC. Welcome to this morning meditation. For this week's offering, I'm going back to the basic instructions in meditation we have here at IMC. One of the characteristics of basic mindfulness is that it's meant to be simple—mindfulness of what is obvious in the moment. There's no need to dig in, analyze, or try to search for something profound. It's not so much about what we see when we are mindful, but rather how we see. We want that seeing, that mindfulness, that awareness to be simple.

So we begin by settling in. The beginning is actually very important. Settle in and relax into the posture, into the practice, as a way of letting go of expectations, ambition, or even ideas of what meditation is, so that it can become simpler and simpler. This is a practice of just seeing, being with what actually is in a simple way.

We begin with a posture that has some balance between an alertness of attention—embodied physical alertness—and relaxation. Have some sense of ease and an ability to relax the body while maintaining an attitude of alertness and presence. The body is attentive, ready to be present for this experience.

Then, gently close the eyes and take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Not too deep, just enough so that there's an inclination, an orientation to sense and feel the body more fully. Breathing in, and then a long, maybe leisurely exhale. Maybe a slight pause at the end of the exhale.

Your whole body-mind becomes a little bit more interested in the beginning of the inhale. The fuller inhales and exhales at the beginning are a ritual reminder that here in this body and mind, here and now, is the playground of meditation—the temple of meditation.

Then, let your breathing return to normal and take some time to relax on the exhale. Relax physically. Maybe start with the muscles of your face, allowing the muscles to fall away from the bone and be held by the skin. Soften around the eyes, the cheeks, and the jaw. Release any way that the lips are pressed against each other.

On the exhale, soften the shoulders. If they don't relax, it's okay; just soften around the shoulders. Soften the belly. As you exhale, allow the weight of the torso to settle into the area of your belly, pelvic cavity, and sitting bones.

Also, as you begin, you might feel on the inhale any tension or pressure in your thinking mind. Maybe in the head, there are physical sensations of being activated or constricted. If so, as you exhale, relax the thinking mind. It is as if the thinking mind can expand, soften outwards into space.

Then, notice the body's experience of breathing—the body's experience of the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out. Notice the different places in the body that experience breathing. It could be the movement of air in and out through the nostrils. Sometimes there's a gentle movement of the shoulders—maybe lifting on the inhale, settling on the exhale. There are movements in the chest, the sensations of pressure and expansion as you breathe in, and the release as you exhale.

Notice the sensations in the belly. There might be a subtle downward pressure in the belly and the sitting bones as you breathe in, and a lifting of that pressure as you exhale. You might feel sensations in your back rib cage or in your spine. Usually very subtle, but maybe still there as you breathe.

In all the places where the body experiences breathing, see if you can notice where you enjoy the experience of breathing the most. Where is it nicest, easiest, or maybe simplest to attend to the breathing? Wherever it seems easiest or nicest, with a light touch of awareness, ride those sensations. Settle into those sensations in the way you would likely pet a cat. Let the alternation of breathing in and breathing out be a light intimacy with the body breathing.

Sometimes what feels nicest is to feel the whole breath body—the whole way in which breathing in and out is felt globally. Maybe a little bit like watching a jellyfish expand and contract as it gently moves through the ocean. Let go of thoughts as you exhale. Remember, it's not so much about the breathing as it is about how you attend to the breathing. Can you attend to it gently, softly, with a devotion like you would have being devoted to petting a cat? Stay there with every coming and going of inhale and exhale.

And then gently, in the way that you would lightly be aware of breathing, shift your attention now to simply feel some relatively dominant sensation in your body. Hopefully, that's not too painful. Gently settle your awareness there to see how simply you can feel it. Relax any ideas of being for or against it, liking or not liking it, or any attitude that it's a problem or that it's wonderful. It is as if you're gently, kindly attending to a friend who simply needs you to be present.

Be gently present for the stronger sensation in your body to see how simple you can be with it. Maybe let attention roam around it—the edges, the inside. Not making it a problem, but experiencing it simply. Maybe it helps to let go of your thinking so that there's more space in the mind to feel. Attend to the physical sensation. If it goes away, find another one.

And then begin again with your breathing. Shift your attention back to breathing. Stay close to the body's experience of breathing in and breathing out.

To get ready to end the meditation, in whatever simple way you might be able to do so, expand your awareness to include your whole body. A kind of global expansion of awareness that quietly roams around the whole body. Feel the body as you breathe in. Still, for a few breaths, relaxing the body as you breathe out.

With your imagination, let your awareness spread out beyond your body, out into the world. It is as if awareness, through your imagination, can spread out across the lands, carrying with it goodwill. Somehow, in the ways that you benefit from the meditation, you're more able to expand your kindness, goodness, care, and love out across the world. Wishing that the benefits of your meditation can support the well-being and happiness of others.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may our ability to be mindful support us in benefiting this world.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Introduction to Mindfuless (2 of 5) Body

Hello and welcome to this five-part series that's an introduction to mindfulness. As I said yesterday, I thought it was very nice, after most of the year going through a wide, open, rich path of Samadhi¹ and insight, to go back to basics. It is always good to be a beginner, even for the most experienced practitioners. I want to offer you the simplest way that we offer the instructions here at the IMC.

We begin with offering meditation on breathing. Some people find that it's invaluable to keep the meditation simple and just stay with breathing. Whole schools of Buddhist meditation are involved with just deepening meditation through attention to breathing.

The idea in the kind of Vipassana² we do is that we're trying to develop a capacity to be aware that supports us, that is beneficial, and that is freeing. It can bring a mindful attention to all aspects of our life, with no part left out. Certainly to our bodily experiences. Some people use meditation to leave behind their bodily experiences to go into some kind of pure area of consciousness. Some people use mindfulness to become aware of emotions, while some use meditation to avoid their difficult emotions. Some use it to become mindful of thinking. Some people have an adversarial relationship to thinking, believing that thinking is a problem for meditation.

In the kind of awareness practice we do here, we're learning how to become aware in an effective way to all aspects like this—certainly to breathing, to the body, to our emotions, and to thinking. Once we get the basics of how to include each of those parts, then—which we'll do on Friday—we bring them all together into one whole.

With the foundation in mindfulness of breathing, the next step in our instructions is to be mindful of the body. There are two ways of doing that which are part of the instruction here. One is if there is a strong sensation in the body that's more compelling than your ability just to hang out with the breathing. If it's strong, it could set up a tension between the effort to be with breathing and this strong sensation. That tension is not necessary. What we can do is either let go of the breathing entirely and let the mindfulness be cultivated and developed on that strong sensation.

Again, it's not so much the need to penetrate or understand or see something special in the sensation as it is our ability to be present for it in a simple, non-reactive way. We're learning to free the awareness. We're learning to free our mental ability to pay attention from being reactive, judgmental, or caught in preferences. Just be very simple, and in that simplicity, find a way that something very deep inside of us can settle and relax.

So if there's a strong sensation in the body, turn the attention to it and hold that simply. Because it's hard to hold something in attention in a fixed way—to hold it there unwaveringly—it's possible to let your attention gently move around or roam around in that strong sensation in the body. Feel it. Even if it's just a small little spot, a square centimeter or something, you could feel the edges of it, feel the inside of it. Gently let the attention move in and out. Maybe pull back a little bit and see it globally. Breathe in. Go closer to feel it intimately.

If it's really hard to be there, some people find it helpful to back off and watch it as if from a distance. Some people find it easier to dip into the heart of it and almost become it. If it's painful, some people find it's easier to be with if you're sitting right in the middle of it and feeling it. Kind of look around, get to know it, and notice the quality of the relationship you have to it. Is it simple or is it complicated? Is it reactive or is it very allowing?

One way is just simply to be there for a little bit. It might only be for three breaths. Some people find that for three breaths they can have a very simple, matter-of-fact relationship without trying to do anything to it, without trying to get rid of it. Then, come back to the breathing. Maybe that happens a few times: three breaths with the sensation, come back to the breathing. Sometimes when the sensation is strong—it doesn't have to be painfully strong; it can be pleasantly strong—it can be longer that we stay with it. It can become the primary focus of attention for some time.

But to make that a little bit easier, there's a second way of being with strong sensations that involves doing so with the support of breathing. It's almost as if we are breathing with the sensation or breathing through it. There's a rhythm of breathing in and breathing out where there's an oscillation or alternation of touching it, being with it, pulling back from it, and going through it—kind of like waves. Then it might be easier for the attention to stay with the strong sensation in a very easy way. Slowly, over time, we're learning how to be with strong sensations in a non-reactive, non-attached way.

Sometimes, oddly enough, it's easier with unpleasant sensations because we don't want to be caught in it. It's painful. We can learn how to be at ease with discomfort, how to be non-reactive, and how not to be caught in its grip. Some people find it harder with strong pleasant sensations because there can't be anything wrong with being attached to that or caught up in that. But in this practice of mindfulness, we're trying to find a way to be with all things in a non-reactive, non-attached, non-interfering way to discover the simplicity of an open awareness—an open sensitivity that feels and knows without needing it to be different.

That goes against the grain for the many ways in which the mind often works, where it's navigating and negotiating life, changing things, trying to plan things, and figure things out. Mostly, attention is involved with objects of attention—with what it's concerned with and trying to do something with it. Mindfulness is a radical shift from being concerned with the object of attention to being interested in and caring for how attention operates itself.

The strong sensations in the body are just one more thing in which to train or to learn how to have a present-moment awareness that has a contemplative, relaxed, open, mindful way of being. We do this so that we can learn to do that more in our life in general—calm awareness.

The way we do this with mindfulness of the body is we continue mindfulness of breathing as the foundation of the practice here at IMC. That's where we cultivate some concentration and mindfulness with the sensations of breathing. But if there's a pull to any kind of strong sensation in the body, then we can let go of breathing and attend to that. At first, maybe just for three breaths. That limit of three breaths keeps it relaxed and keeps it from getting entangled or making it into an engineering or analytical project. Just to feel it, then back to the breathing.

If the strong sensation persists for some time, then there can be a longer attention to it. Let the attention roam around and feel it, remembering that it's an exploration for how to be aware simply, but also a way of the awareness becoming stable, settled, or getting a little bit more unified or concentrated around the sensation.

That gathering of attention can be supported, if you'd like and if it's not too complicated, by breathing with the strong sensations. So breathing, attention, and maybe even slightly your interest, is all gathering around this sensation that's there. Once it feels acknowledged enough—it doesn't have to have gone away, it just feels like you've gotten to know it and acknowledged it—then go back to the breathing.

In this practice that we teach, breathing keeps being the default. Keep coming back there where we're cultivating being settled, being unified, and gathering ourselves around the breathing, but always ready to let go of it for some stronger sensation.

For today, before we get to the emotions tomorrow, you might want to try this with your body. Two assignments if you would like, if you have time. Yesterday I suggested that you add a 10-minute meditation sometime later in the day today. If you're in an evening time zone right now, maybe do it tomorrow before our YouTube broadcast. But today, I'd like to suggest you add five minutes. So try to sit 15 minutes more later today, at least.

Experiment with this movement of going from breathing to body sensations and see if that can be done in a very calming, settling way where you're experimenting with how simple it could be without getting caught in reactivity to the body sensations that you might have. Just gently emphasize breathing. But for this exercise, experiment a little bit with what it's like to go and tap into or touch into different parts of your body, different sensations, and then come back to your breathing. So you develop a little bit of familiarity with these kinds of instructions.

Then, in the rest of your life, it's invaluable to keep checking into your embodied experience. Check into how your body feels in the different circumstances of your life activity. In driving, working, using an electronic device, looking at a screen, talking with a friend, or talking with a challenging person—what's happening in your body? For this one day in daily life, get curious about how your body experiences your life.

Thank you, and tomorrow we'll do emotions and continue on these instructions.