This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Loving Oneself; Love (3) Caring for Self to Care for All. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Guided Meditation-Loving Oneself; Dharmette: Love (3) Caring for Self to Care for All - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 07, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation-Loving Oneself

Hello and welcome.

The topic of these days, having to do with this wonderfully broad and somewhat vague concept of love, is related to how deeply intimate this practice of Buddhism, mindfulness, loving-kindness, and the Brahma-viharas¹ can go. It can go to the deepest places within—the most intimate, sometimes private places, places of some of the greatest beauty and greatest sorrow that we carry with us.

Part of the orientation of Dharma practice is to care for the depth of who we are and the depth of other people. It is to understand that the surface presentations—what we present, what we see in others—represents maybe the tip of an iceberg. Beneath is something quite deep: a history of challenges, joys, and losses, and capacities for deep peace, deep love, and joy that we sometimes touch into, and sometimes we can't.

To be in this world with a profound sense of almost reverence, of deep care for the preciousness of it—that is how we can sit. Meditation is not simply about stress reduction. It is not about becoming calmer, though of course, that is part of it. But at the essence of this kind of Dharma practice, meditation is to sit and practice to be able to make room for, to touch, to care for, and to orient ourselves to the present moment so that we can meet and be with what is most valuable here with us. We cultivate an attitude of deep care and reverence for this life, for ourselves, and for others.

To begin, gently close your eyes.

Gently become aware of how you are breathing without breathing in any particular way. Just how is it to be in this breathing body? How is it to check in to this human being that you are? The human being that you are closest to physically and maybe emotionally.

All human beings are valuable and important. All human beings, including oneself.

Breathing in a simple way, with eyes closed, where do you go inside of you to begin approaching this sense of care, value, and the preciousness of being alive? Where is it that you feel there is an aliveness within that reminds you of the preciousness of life? That reminds you that you too can be cared for, can be touched? You too can be held in deep, caring attention.

I talked to someone recently who spends time in the Tenderloin in San Francisco, a place where there are a lot of homeless people. He sits with them and talks, and all he says he does is listen to them. And they thank him so deeply. People who are in all kinds of difficult states of mind appreciate being listened to respectfully.

And here and now with yourself, think of meditation as a deep, silent listening to what is deep within you, here and now. Gently, ever so gently, appreciate an inner connection into breathing. Breathe a little bit deeper, fuller, and relax. Soften on the exhale. Just a little bit fuller than usual.

As if the breathing is taking you by your hand and gently guiding you, leading you into yourself, lowering yourself into your center, your heart, the grounding place deep inside. As if you are approaching what is most intimate. Where you are going to listen from and what you are going to listen to—a silent presence.

Let your breathing return to normal. Maybe with the exhale being a gentle guidance, guiding you deeper and deeper inside. Allowing the exhale to be an invitation to quiet the thinking mind so you can better sense, feel, and listen to the most intimate, deepest places within, however accessible it is.

And as we continue, you might quietly say to yourself the word "care." Either verbally or in a nonverbal way of bringing forth, naming, or recognizing a deep potential for caring. Loving care, caring love for yourself with every breath.

Maybe the inhale, maybe the exhale, maybe both is the gentle wave that carries your care. A care that can only be in the present moment. A care which is lost if we wander off in thought. Stay here. Offer caring attention to whatever is, even to the wandering of the mind.

Perhaps allowing care and love, or kindness, to be the doorway to a deep present-moment attention. Deep connection to yourself with breathing being the invitation to go through that door. And to sit in kindness, in care, in the middle of this living moment of Now.

It is so easy to be identified with our thoughts, identified with our emotions, feelings, and stories. For these few minutes here, shift your identity to the soft, gentle way of care, love, and kindness. Caring attention, kind mindfulness, loving presence. Let that be the center of all things.

[Silence]

And as we come to the end of the sitting, begin here with caring for yourself from the depth of your being. To care for your body, your heart, your mind. Where caring means to value, to appreciate, to love, to take care of. And to do that for yourself, to cherish yourself, because that is the basis for your care to spread further. To not be limited or held back by yourself, but to care deeply, to be present.

So the care becomes unlimited, spreading outward into the world where there is some aspect, some core nature of every human being on the planet that is worthy of care, worthy of kindness, worthy of offering a basic human dignity. Everyone will benefit from being listened to by someone who can listen deeply.

May it be that our care, our caring capacity to know and to listen, helps us to have kindness and friendliness to everyone we encounter. May our practice of meditation support us to be open and boundless in our ability to value every person we encounter.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Love (3) Caring for Self to Care for All

Hello and welcome to this third talk in this series on love.

As I have said, the word love is broad and somewhat vague, but I am using it here as an umbrella term for some of the most profound social emotions that are pointed to or awakened to in Buddhist practice. They include the Brahma-viharas of goodwill, compassion, appreciative joy, and loving equanimity. It includes something even broader, anukampā², or care—profound caring that values, appreciates, and offers to take care of this world of ours.

One of the great little stories in the Buddhist tradition is a conversation that the Buddha reports between a king and a queen. The king, who we might consider was a little bit used to being center stage and maybe the most important person—maybe he had some conceit even—asks his wife, the queen, who she considers to be most dear, most cherished, most loved.

Maybe the expectation he has is that she is going to say "him," because he is the husband or the king, or maybe because they are good friends. She replies that she herself is what is most dear to herself. He is a little bit surprised by this. So they decide to go to the Buddha and ask him about this conversation they had.

The Buddha concurs with the queen: yes, for each person, each person is most dear to themselves.

Now, I know that is not actually the case for many people. For some people, "themselves" is who is most difficult. Oneself is the person that they are ready to find fault with and see the shortcomings of. They are willing to offer loving care to anyone but themselves.

But the switch in Buddhist practice is to learn to appreciate that it is healthy and appropriate to have deep care, to hold oneself as being dear. Deep care for oneself is something that each of us warrants. It is appropriate. No matter what your crime has been, you are still the one to care for the most deeply. You are the one that you can make the most difference to.

One of the reasons I think it is difficult for us sometimes to have real, deep, profound care, respect, and a sense of inner dignity for ourselves is because we identify too strongly with our thoughts, our judgments, and our opinions. We identify so strongly with the profound social persona that has been reinforced by so many different messages that we receive from society and people around us of how we should be or are supposed to be. It keeps us out of touch with the depth of who we are. It keeps us spinning in the world of thoughts, ideas, stories that we make up, and judgments we have.

And of course, some of us have shortcomings. Of course, some of us have done things which maybe we are not proud of. But that is not a reason to not dip deep inside and to appreciate that you too are worthy of being listened to deeply. Each of us is worthy of our place as a human being to be heard and known, and to find a way to really blossom, grow, and heal from the inside out by doing the equivalent of listening to ourselves deeply.

It is remarkable how for people who are in spiritual care professions, people who spend a lot of time one-on-one offering care to others, one of the most important things to offer is to listen deeply.

As I mentioned earlier today, I talked to a man recently who lives in the Tenderloin in San Francisco. He says every hour there are people who are maybe drug-induced or mental-illness-induced, screaming on the streets, and sirens, and a lot of people taking drugs and selling drugs. It is a difficult place in San Francisco. He lives in a temporary residence there, but he spends time on the street with people. He is kind of a chaplain himself. He stops and listens to people and hears their stories. It breaks his heart sometimes, the stories he hears, but he is surprised by how meaningful it is for people to be able to tell their story—to be listened to in a deep way.

Whether it is people who are homeless, or whether it is our friends, or people who are relatively well-off, it is remarkable what happens when we listen deeply. I have learned not to judge people by their surface appearance because that really doesn't represent their hearts. It doesn't represent what is most deep.

I tell you all this because we can listen to ourselves. This idea that the Buddha says that we ourselves are the most dear person for ourselves means that it is important to care for ourselves. It is invaluable to listen and dip deep down and really discover how to be present in a full and caring way. We begin to appreciate that mindfulness practice is a form of deep, caring listening. The ability to really start abiding and resting in the present moment is not just because the present moment is wonderful, but rather the present moment is the only place we can really allow for this very deep cherishing, caring, listening—touching that which is deepest in us that wants to be heard and held.

I want to tell you one story that I love. I think it comes from one of the great epic tales of India, the Mahabharata³.

It is a story of Krishna walking with a companion in the woods. At some point, Krishna hears a voice very faintly calling his name. He asks his companion, "Do you hear that voice?" The companion says, "No, I don't hear anything."

Krishna begins walking towards the voice, the voice that is calling his name. As he gets closer, he asks the companion again, "Do you hear that voice?" "No."

They walk closer still and come up against a big boulder. For Krishna, that voice is coming out of the boulder. "Do you hear that voice?" The companion says, "No, I don't hear it."

So Krishna comes and puts his hand on the boulder. That causes the boulder to break open. Deep inside, there is a wonderful person who has been petrified by some wizard in that rock, and only Krishna could somehow break that spell.

So, this idea of: what has been petrified in us? What is it that is calling us? Do you get quiet enough so that you can hear how you are calling yourself? It is a voice that no one else can hear for you. And yes, it might be hard. Yes, there might be resistance in places that are closed inside of you. But deep inside of it, something is calling your name. "Here, come here. Listen carefully."

In the story, there is the idea of this soft, gentle hand just holding and touching the rock. What is it in you that needs to be touched and cared for in some deep way?

You are allowed to be who you are. You are allowed to be with how you are. There is so much room in Buddhism for deep respect, care, and attention to exactly how you are. But listen. Listen deeply. Listen to the one who is listening. Listening with an open heart to it all.

Maybe you too will break out of the petrified way, the holding, the resistance that we all have. It is worth it.

And so this Buddhist practice, the Dharma practice, is both for ourselves and for others. It is not for one or the other. But it often begins with ourselves, so that we listen and care deeply here for ourselves. Then, inevitably, we will be better able to care for others. Listen to yourself deeply, and that depth will teach you how to listen to others deeply.

Thank you.

Announcements

As we go through this introductory week to this topic of love, before we start actually practicing a little bit more formally with the loving-kindness practice of our tradition, I have one announcement.

Next Tuesday at 6:00 PM California time, I am going to have a conversation on Zoom through the Sati Center with Mohsen Mahdawi. He was one of the Columbia University students—Palestinian students—who was detained by ICE. They tried to deport him, and he was in detention for a while.

The paradox is that he is the opposite of a terrorist, the opposite of someone instigating violence or hatred. Well before he was arrested, he was actively involved in the university building bridges between Jews and Palestinians and fostering friendships between them. He was also the president of the Columbia University Buddhist Association. So he has a deep Buddhist practice.

I have the wonderful privilege to have a public conversation with him that follows up a little bit on the conversation I had with a Palestinian and Israeli Dharma teacher in August or October. Some of you might appreciate this conversation. I think part of the topic of this conversation with him will be "love as an alternative to fear."

That is at the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies. You can look for it there.

Thank you, and I look forward to our continued exploration of love.