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Guided Meditation: Flowing with Change; Dharmette: Insight (16) Insight with Samadhi - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on June 30, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Introduction

Welcome. I am sitting here in the hills above Lake Tahoe in California, where I’ve been on vacation for almost a week. I’ve been hiking in the mountains at a fairly high elevation. This is our last morning here before driving back home to Redwood City, and we’ll be broadcasting from IMC¹ tomorrow again.

This setting is different than how it usually is, and it speaks to the theme I’m focusing on: change, inconstancy, and impermanence. Surprisingly, there is always a new place and a new situation. The central focus Buddhism has is on anicca², the Pali³ word that’s usually translated as "impermanence," but more literally means "inconstancy." It is in the family of words like "change." The Buddha used three expressions together: inconstancy, change, and becoming different.

Change has three important characteristics. As we become wiser about inconstancy, it’s useful to keep these three aspects in mind. First, change means that something that was will no longer be. Second, it means things that were not happening are now happening. Thus, change can be welcome or unwelcome. Something unfortunate can come to an end, and we might celebrate that relief. Conversely, something fortunate and wonderful can end, and we feel sad. The ending of one thing means the beginning of something else. Sometimes, things don't change fast enough, or they change too slowly and stay constant for a while.

In these ways, impermanence is not just a depressing word; it also makes possible all the useful, important, and wonderful changes in your life. Not having change is sometimes the unfortunate thing. We need change in order to grow; a child grows through change. It makes a world of difference in Buddhist practice whether we situate ourselves in the middle of this changing world. Even if our thoughts emphasize that things aren't changing, there is always change here in the present moment. By being attuned to change, it is possible to find a degree of freedom—a freedom where we don’t hold on to anything and don’t resist anything. It is a freedom where we "surf" or float with the changes, but not randomly. It isn't chaos. There is a gentle, appropriate way that we steer the raft down the river. The river carries us downstream, but we keep it in the current.

We can influence the change that happens by creating the conditions for it to be different. In meditation, we learn to situate ourselves in change and understand where the rudder is that keeps us going in a good direction. It keeps us flowing in the current rather than leaving the river for the land of thoughts, ideas, memories, and futures. We stay in the river and avoid getting caught in the eddies or the sandbanks. One of the best places to find that current is in the breathing.

Guided Meditation: Flowing with Change

To begin, assume a meditation posture and gently close your eyes. Using your physical body as an antenna—as a sense apparatus—feel the body’s experience of breathing. As you breathe, feel the sensations of change in your torso: the movements of your rib cage, the belly, and the diaphragm.

In a gentle way that is just right for you, take some fuller inhales and more extended exhales. Begin entering into the full physical experience of breathing, as if your whole body is participating. Remember the extended exhale as a way to relax and soften.

Now, let your breathing return to normal. It is not so much about "watching" the breath, but rather allowing your awareness to participate in the changing, shifting rhythm of breathing in and breathing out. As you exhale, relax and soften the thinking mind. Quieting your thinking. If you like, you can use very quiet, soft thoughts that support this stilling and keep you participating in the flow. Enter into the ever-changing sensations of breathing, one breath at a time.

Notice how thinking takes you out of the flow of breathing. Place yourself back in the rhythm so the mind doesn't get fixated on any idea, thought, judgment, or feeling. Everything is allowed to move and pass through. Stay in the river of change with awareness as your rudder. Gently move to stay in the flow of breathing in and out. Awareness itself doesn't get fixated; it flows like a boat on the surface of a river.

There is an art to having mindfulness participate with breathing—gently flowing along, awareness massaged by the breath so it stays soft, gentle, and relaxed. This allows the breathing to settle and quiet. There can be a very satisfying and healthy way of breathing that comes with this caring attention.

As we come to the end of this meditation, just as caring for our breathing can allow the breathing to care for us, we care for the wider world so it may care for us. Sitting here in the forests of Northern California, in the midst of this natural world upon which our human lives depend, may it be that we use our awareness, compassion, and kindness to care for what cares for us. May our heightened attention to the present support us in caring for the natural world around us and within us.

May all of life be supported to move through its natural cycles freely and caringly. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

I don’t have a bell today, so I will end this meditation with a bow to all of you. Thank you.

Dharmette: Insight (16) Insight with Samadhi

Hello everyone, and welcome to this continuing series on insight. Today is the end of my vacation in the hills of Lake Tahoe, and I am glad to have you along.

In this series, I have given many talks on the first insight, usually called "impermanence" in English, or more literally, "inconstancy." This emphasis on insight can sometimes lead people to believe that mindfulness or insight meditation is meant to be a form of thinking about things. In fact, while the deeper insight developed in meditation certainly has a cognitive side, it involves a deep samadhi⁴—a deep settledness, peacefulness, quiet, and focus of the mind.

This deeper insight into change arises when the insight practice becomes conjoined with samadhi. Earlier this year, the series focused on samadhi, and I hope those who followed along felt the possibility of a deep, silent mind—a state of being collected and unified in a peaceful way. That sense of settlement usually get unified around an object, like the breathing or loving-kindness.

One of the things we can get unified around is the experience of change itself, especially if that experience is a simple one, like the function of breathing. By entering into the current of changing, flowing sensations—the minute ripples of sensations that come and go with each inhale and exhale—the mind begins to unify. We don’t have to "look" for subtle sensations, but by staying mindful of the changing nature of breathing in the present moment, we allow the mind to settle.

In pure samadhi or jhanic⁵ work, the mind often organizes around something more stable, where the stilling of the mind is more important than the changing nature of the object. For insight practice, however, the stilling of the mind and the changing nature of the object work together in harmony. Deep insight begins to come to the forefront when the mind is very still and unified around the experience of change.

As we get absorbed into this world of change, our awareness is no longer limited to the breathing. It can open up into the whole field of changing sensations, sometimes called "choiceless awareness." Here, we aren't choosing the breath as the focal point; we are allowing change to show itself to us in whatever way it arises—a sound, a sensation, a feeling, or a thought. We aren't chasing these things, but rather settling and quieting in the midst of them.

Sometimes, opening up to choiceless awareness too quickly can limit the settling of the mind. It’s easy to mistake a purely cognitive awareness of everything for a deep, non-thinking mode of being. For this reason, many people find it helpful to stay with the breathing. All the insight we need can be found in the changing, shifting sensations of the breath. As a teacher, my preference is to encourage people to stay with the breathing as long as it is compelling, as it is a wonderful place to develop the unification of samadhi and insight hand-in-hand.

However, if anything else becomes more compelling—a strong sensation, an emotion, or a loud sound—you can fold that into your awareness. Let that become the organizing center for unification. The goal isn't to "understand" the sound, but to take it in as a changing, flowing part of the present moment. If you have knee pain, you don't start thinking about it; rather, the pain becomes the place where you stay with changing, flowing sensations.

In this process, a meditator might go through stages comparable to pure samadhi practice, such as "approach concentration" (upacāra-samādhi⁶). You may experience deep joy, happiness, and peace, leading to deep equanimity. The flow of inconstancy—the coming and going of things—becomes the resting place and the home base for our experience.

We aren't looking for change to evaluate it cognitively; rather, awareness is flowing in it, unified with it. Awareness becomes the change. I like to think of "now" as a river—the "river of now." We are always in it, but it is a river because everything within it is always shifting. The more we rest in this river, the more we see it as a constant movement of sensations and thoughts arising and passing. By staying with it with a restful awareness, the whole psychophysical system can become peaceful. Eventually, with deeper insight, we see that "all there is is change." At that point, it doesn't even matter what is changing; the mind finds delight simply in the flow. This is deeply satisfying because it is deeply freeing. The mind no longer latches on to anything, reacts, or judges; it is simply at ease, resting in the current of the present moment.

Thank you very much. I am happy to be here and grateful to my friend who allowed my family to come here for our vacation. I’ll be back at IMC tomorrow morning and look forward to continuing then. Thank you.