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Guided Meditation: How We Are Aware; Dharmette: Introduction to Mindfulness Pt 2 (5 of 5) 360 Degree Mindfulness - 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: How We Are Aware

Hello and welcome to this half-hour of exploring the nature of attention—exploring the nature of how we are aware of anything at all.

As an introduction for this meditation, I'd like to use an analogy. Most of us have held a lot of things in our hands over our lifetimes. You can probably think of how you have held things in many different ways. Sometimes you have gripped things; you wouldn't let them out of your hand or let go. Sometimes you have stood at the edge of a big drop and held onto a railing for dear life, tight and firm. Sometimes you have maybe held a weapon to protect yourself. Sometimes you have held a child, carefully and tenderly. Sometimes, maybe a butterfly has landed on your palm and you just held that almost weightless creature in your hand—open, careful, tender. Sometimes you have held something that was fragile, requiring very gentle holding.

There are all kinds of ways in which you have held all kinds of things. So, there are two things: what you are holding in your hand, and how you are holding it in your hand.

It is the same way with awareness. There is what you are aware of, and how you are aware of it. Just like the analogy of the hand, how the mind knows something—how the mind attends to something—can be tight, under pressure, or holding on tight. Or, it can be loose, light, and soft. This is the mind's equivalent of an open hand, or a gentle hand. It is the way that you would hold a newborn baby, so gently. Or perhaps the way you would pet a cat with an open hand, with care and attention. Or the way that you would put your hand on the back or shoulder of a friend who is having a hard time.

There are all these different ways that you can be aware. In mindfulness practice, we are not only noticing what we are aware of—the breathing, the body, the sensations, the sounds, the thoughts, the emotions—but central to it all is to start being sensitive to how we are aware of it.

We may bring with us a lot of extra effort in how we are aware. Some people bring a sense of duty and obligation, a big "should"—"I have to do this." Some people bear down with their mindfulness, thinking, "I have to really penetrate and understand this." Some people are spinning a lot of thoughts about what they are aware of, kind of holding themselves at a distance from it, maybe because they don't want to feel it or because they feel like they have to analyze it. Some people pull back, where the awareness is rejecting something. Some people lean forward because they want to savor it, enjoy it, and keep it as long as they can.

In mindfulness practice, the art is to keep the awareness—keep the way that we attend to anything at all—calm, relaxed, and open. It is as if the mind doesn't move. The mind is just here, available. The mind just knows. The mind doesn't have to do anything. It doesn't have to tighten. It doesn't have to hold anything. It just is available. We allow experiences to arise in the mind, arise in awareness. Anything extra is something that, through mindfulness meditation, we slowly, bit by bit, learn to recognize and let go of.

To begin, assume a mindful posture and gently close your eyes. As you are here now, how would you characterize your ability to be aware, to be mindful, to attend to the present moment? Is it weak or strong? Is it clouded over by a lot of thoughts? Is there a lot of energy activation in the mind that makes the awareness scattered or jumping around?

Is there any tension or pressure in the awareness? A sense of reaching forward, wanting something? Is there a sense of inertia or resistance, pulling back, or collapsing? Maybe wanting to give up?

It is okay to be any way you are with your mind, with your awareness. For five breaths, breathe with that. Just know it. Allow it to be this way. Count five breaths as you feel it, accompany it, and allow it to be.

When you finish your five breaths, lower your awareness—your center of gravity—into the torso, to where the movements of breathing come and go, appear and disappear. Feel the movements of the chest and the belly.

Then, in a gentle, subtle way, allow your breathing to take some fuller breaths, expanding more fully as you breathe in. Take a long exhale in which you relax the body. Soften the shoulders, the chest, the belly.

Maybe with the same way of breathing, or a little bit less full, as you breathe in, feel the thinking mind. And as you exhale, relax the thinking mind.

Let your breathing return to normal. Now, as you breathe in and breathe out, know that you are breathing in and out. Feel the sensations of breathing in and out. Be aware of the sensations in the body of the inhale and exhale.

And then, notice how you are aware, how you know, how you sense. As you breathe in, can you open awareness—the sense of knowing, the sense of feeling—as you would open a clenched fist? Open your hand. Open the hand of your awareness. And on the exhale, relax and soften any tension associated with awareness. Allow the meeting of breathing and awareness to be a peaceful meeting, a calm meeting place.

It is sometimes said that when the mind gets involved with thoughts, the mind has wandered away. With that metaphor, people try to bring their mind "back" to the present. But the mind never goes anywhere. It is always here. When you notice you have been involved in thoughts, don't move the mind. Let the mind be peaceful and calm. Relax the mind, and allow breathing to reappear in the mind.

You might have attitudes of being "for" or "against" what is happening, reacting to what your experience is or how you are. Know that, feel that, and allow everything to be in awareness in an open, gentle way.

There are always two things happening: what you are aware of, and how you are aware. Be aware in a caring, gentle way. Adjust how you are aware so it is calm, peaceful, without any tension or pressure.

In being aware this way, how is it to be aware of whatever is happening in the present?

As we come to the end of the sitting, notice the quality of your mind. Notice the quality of attention and awareness. Has it shifted from the beginning?

In that open, clear awareness, open up to the wider world—to the people you will see and know—and offer goodwill. Have a well-wishing for this world, so that the meditation practice you do is for the sake of your own well-being and the well-being of everyone.

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

May we live with this attitude, with this orientation, so that our awareness touches everything and everyone with our goodwill.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Introduction to Mindfulness Pt 2 (5 of 5) 360 Degree Mindfulness

Welcome to this fifth talk for part two of the Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation.

As I mentioned at the end of last week, the final instruction for mindfulness is to understand the practice as a way of bringing mindfulness to all aspects of our life.

I once introduced myself as a Vipassana¹ practitioner to a wonderful Jesuit priest who was also a Buddhist scholar. He had lived in Japan and China for many years, was very knowledgeable about religion, and was a very deep practitioner in his own right. When I told him I was a Vipassana practitioner, his reply to me was, "Oh, you practice 360-degree awareness."

I was delighted to hear this description. "360 degrees" means awareness is available and open to everything. What I learned was that sometimes, with that 360-degree awareness—where we include everything in awareness—we pay attention to one thing at a time, but we are available to everything. So, one thing arises, and we are just there to feel it and know it. Something else arises, and we are there to know, feel, and experience it. The sense is that all the doors and windows are open, and everyone is open to whatever is going on.

Part of this all-encompassing awareness is that it includes how we are aware. It would be like someone who learned that the practice means to feel and touch everything with their hands. So they go around touching everything, but no one told them that it is not just touching things; how you touch is important too. Some people are very aggressive with their touching, slamming into things. Other people are tentative; they just barely touch it, and whatever they are touching—like another person—doesn't even know they have been touched.

It is possible to touch things in a simple, non-aggressive, non-tentative way—just touching in a simple, relaxed, peaceful way. If it is appropriate to touch another person, perhaps a friend who is troubled or anxious, and you touch their shoulder, the way you touch it just feels peaceful. It feels calm. It is not demanding or requiring anything of your friend. But also, you are clearly making it known that you are there for them. It is not tentative, and it is not resisting.

In the same way with awareness, how we are mindful is very important. At some point, as we get into this practice, for it to be 360 degrees, it isn't just looking around us like the light in a lighthouse that shines on everything around it. At some point, the light turns around 180 degrees and looks at itself, knows itself.

We know whether how we are aware is tense, pressured, or resistant. Does the way we are aware come along with an attitude? Does it come along with some emotion that is present? Does it come along with some beliefs, thoughts, or ideas that are maybe very subtle, but are there?

Does how we are aware come along with body sensations? Sometimes I have been very aware of something, very interested in something, and I am leaning forward. I can feel a little tension in my lower back. I can feel some tightness in my belly. I can feel something because of the sensations that accompany how I am aware.

So, these beginning instructions—breathing, body, emotions, and thoughts—can now include how we are aware, because all of those can come into play in different ways depending on our awareness. We can ask ourselves and go through almost a checklist. "I have been aware now for five minutes or ten minutes in my meditation. How am I aware?"

How is it with my breathing? Is my breathing tense? Is the breathing being held? Some people hold their breathing; suddenly there is something intense going on in meditation, or an interesting or worrisome sound outside, and as we pay attention, we can feel the breathing is a little bit tight and maybe shallow. How is breathing affected by the way we are aware?

What are the physical sensations that come into play as we are aware? Because we are participating—we are leaning forward, we are pulling back, we are getting tense being aware.

Then, what are the emotions that are there as part of awareness? Maybe there is a feeling of discouragement, or "this is too hard," and so the sense of "this is hard" comes along with awareness. Or there is a sense of enthusiasm—"This is wonderful, this is cool, I can't wait for more"—or something interesting.

And then there are the thoughts and beliefs that we go on. "Oh, this is so important. I have to do it a particular way. I'm supposed to do this. I'm not supposed to do that. This is not supposed to be happening." Or beliefs like, "I'm going to be enlightened any minute."

The idea is to become very simple—a radical simplicity. There is a little slogan: "If it's not simple, it's not Vipassana."

That is kind of the North Star of this practice: to learn this 360-degree awareness that includes all of our humanity, all of who we are. To learn how to be aware of it all in a calm, relaxed, even, open-handed way.

And then, to also be aware of how we are aware. Not all the time, just from time to time. The how we are aware of awareness is also important to notice. There is a kind of stepping back—"How is this now? How is this now?"—that highlights if we are doing anything extra. Any extra tension, any extra pressure, any extra giving up, any extra collapsing, any extra conceit—all kinds of things that are "extra."

The greatest joy, the greatest benefits of this insight practice, comes when we can be clearly aware, at ease, and at rest in the present moment. Just aware, without anything extra. That starts giving us a taste, a glimpse, of what freedom from clinging, freedom from attachment, and freedom from suffering can be like.

I hope that you appreciate these instructions and that they give you something to work with. You might spend today or this weekend looking, considering, and reflecting about how you are aware—how you are being mindful when you practice mindfulness.

If you have a friend who does this kind of practice as well, you might have a conversation with them about how you are mindful. What are the different "hows"? What are the different ways that you are mindful in different circumstances, or on different days? What are some of the forces in your life that affect how you are aware? Become more cognizant of how you are aware, how you are mindful, how you know, so you can be wise about this and be able to be mindful wisely and beneficially.

Thank you.