This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Reassuring Breath; Eightfold Path (10 of 10) Holistic Knowledge and Release. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Guided Meditation: Reassuring Breath; Eightfold Path (10 of 10) Holistic Knowledge and Release

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 24, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Introduction

Hello everyone, and welcome.

For me, one of the wonderful quotes from the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi¹, who wrote Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, is that he summarized all of Buddhism in three words: not always so.

I delight in these three words, putting them together: not always so. There's something about gently, kindly, lovingly being reminded of these three words that supports not fixating on something, not relating to something as if it's the absolute thing, the truth, the way things are. Or fixating on something as if, with an attitude, though intellectually we know better, it's as if this is forever.

So as we sit today, maybe we sit with "it's not always so" for a particular purpose. And the purpose is to be able to see there's more right now than any particular thing that we're concerned with. There's more right now than whatever we're feeling in the moment. It's not always so. It isn't just that eventually it's not going to be here, but I interpret it for myself that this is not all there is. There's more right now. And for the mindfulness to expand to include the more, to include the bigger picture, so we don't get caught, fixated by whatever we're clinging to, concerned with, caught up in. Not always so. There's always more. There's more here.

Guided Meditaiton: Reassuring Breath (link)

Assuming a meditation posture and gently closing the eyes.

Here, sitting in this body, it won't always be so the way it is now. And with that reminder, to both appreciate this body as it is right now. One of the things that will happen to most of you, or at least a few of you, is that your body will age. It won't always be how it is now.

To sit here and feel and sense what is here. To hold it lightly. In whatever you're concerned with, if anything preoccupies you about your body, you are more than that. Your body is more than your concern. There's more than you are focused on. And to open to the wider, more inclusive, fuller experience of being in a body. That kind of wide perspective that makes room for what you don't know or don't experience about your body. So there's room for everything to function freely in the open space of awareness.

And then within the body, as part of the body, becoming aware of your breathing. One of the ways of understanding breathing is that the process of breathing is at the nexus, the crossroads of your whole life. Breathing interacts and is in intimate involvement with all the physiological, psychological, emotional processes that you have. And there's a conversation back and forth between your breathing and your physiology, breathing and your heart, breathing and your emotions, even breathing and your thoughts.

So much so that if you can breathe in a relaxed way, softening the breath, it can be very reassuring for the whole psychophysical system. Relaxing the belly. With a relaxed belly, allow the inhale to begin deep in the belly and to grow and expand: belly, rib cage, chest.

Letting there be a releasing, a letting go with the exhale. As the diaphragm returns to its relaxed state, allowing the release of exhaling be a release of the whole body.

Riding along with your breathing, but also at the same time with a wide-open awareness. The wonderful way in which relaxed breathing can reassure the whole being can better function, the more inclusive, broad, wide the field of awareness, the more relaxed breathing in the middle of it can be reassuring, settling, bringing the whole into a harmony.

There are the particular sensations of breathing in your belly, chest, the movement and expansion, contraction, pressure and release. And then there's the influence of breathing beyond the edges of those sensations. To be open, spacious, aware of the area around the breathing, letting the reassuring influence of breathing spread into your body.

Quieting the thinking mind. Softening the thinking mind. So there can be a softening in the rhythm of breathing, the sensations of breathing. So there can be better calming of the body and mind from the gentle rhythm of breathing in and out.

And as we come to the end of the sitting, to feel or sense if your breathing is any calmer than it was before. Or to feel where in the cycle of breathing things are most calm or reassuring for you. With the inhale or the exhale, the beginning of the exhale or the end, the beginning of the inhale or the end, or in the space between.

To imagine that you can show up in the world with other people with an easeful, calm breath, belly relaxed. And in doing so, you're less likely to spread tension and anxiety, hurriedness, preoccupation, but rather you spread ease and peace, calm and goodness.

May it be that this practice that we do supports us to bring reassurance to all beings. We bring calm and well-being to help settle and bring peace to others.

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

And may we stay close to our breathing, so we can stay close to our ease.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Eightfold Path (10 of 10) Holistic Knowledge and Release (link)

Hello and welcome to this final talk on the Eightfold Path.² It'll be the 10th talk, and so it's a concluding talk on the whole topic of the Eightfold Path.

In a sense, the Eightfold Path ends where it began. This has become most clear in the teachings where the Eightfold Path is expanded to become a tenfold path. The ninth fold of the path is right or holistic knowledge. The first one, holistic view, and holistic knowledge are kind of the same, but knowledge is deeper. The view, the orientation, the perspective of the whole is invaluable and helps create the context for the appearance and the living of the next seven folds of the Eightfold Path.

But at some point, the view becomes more and more integrated into us as a deep way of knowing. The idea being, knowing is deeper than view. That knowing is somehow more encompassing, more inclusive. It's the whole system, the whole body knows. It's kind of like your gut knows. Sometimes we don't know why we know something, but we feel it in our belly. Our whole being knows this is the truth, this is how it is.

And so, in a sense, the beginning of the Eightfold Path contains in it the end. I love this idea that the means contains the goal, contains the end result. And if the end result is to not cling, to not suffer, then we start with a view, an orientation that allows us to begin feeling and sensing in pieces, in small ways, non-clinging, non-suffering.

The way I presented it before is that we begin to open up the awareness more widely, so we're not preoccupied with our suffering, with our clinging, but we see right next to it there is non-clinging, non-suffering. There's space right from the edges of your body. There's space within your body. There's more than whatever you're concerned with at the moment. And to have this more inclusive awareness that can hold things that even seem opposed to each other. There can be fear and the absence of fear. There can even be reassurance in different parts of our body, in different places. There can be ill will, resentment, hatred, and non-hatred and love together. These things can kind of coexist, so that it's not either/or, but it's "and."

And with the "and," there's also this sense that awareness can become larger, or a sense of presence or sense of embodiment can be larger to hold more. And so in that space, this non-clinging space that holds more, it's not an either/or, it's a "yes" to all of it, where we don't get caught by any particular part. We're healing the way we live divided. We're healing the way that we separate from ourselves by overemphasizing one particular view, one particular belief, one particular identity, one particular form of desire, anxiety, emotion. And healing that by not living dividedly, not being over-fixated on any one thing.

And so when we come to the culmination of this process of holism, discovering and experiencing our wholeness, then this deep knowledge of the inconstancy of life, the coming and going of life, this possibility of being here alive without being fixated on identity—there's something much bigger here, much more vast and rich and fascinating than any particular identity we could hold on to. It kind of includes all our identities, not rejecting anything which is healthy and appropriate, but that opens up to something wider, wider than clinging, a place of non-clinging.

And so right knowledge knows non-clinging intimately, knows it fully, has a deep sense that the wholeness of our experience is coterminous with non-clinging. And so there's a deep, deep knowing of this kind of world of non-clinging. There's a harmony. Now the body comes into harmony with the changing, flowing, river-like nature of the present moment.

And then with that harmony, with this knowledge, this knowing that being in harmony with this deep knowing, it'll be deeply reassuring, deeply settling. So reassuring and settling and peaceful that we can eventually let go of all self-concern, all self-orientation, all self-motivation and wanting something and expecting something. And something happens when all sense of self, identity, and everything falls away. All clinging falls away, and then there is a holistic release. The 10th step of the path is that it's not just a particular form of letting go, it's like everything lets go. Everything. It includes it all.

And it's a whole different category of release than, you know, releasing just one thing that we let go of, partly letting go. There can be very deep letting go that's not really complete yet. And that completion comes with being in harmony with this right or holistic knowledge, being in harmony with a holistic view, being in harmony with holistic orientation, being in harmony with holistic speech—out loud and also in our own mind, how we talk to ourselves. To be in harmony with a holistic action, that's non-harming action. Being in harmony with a holistic life, lifestyle. Being in harmony with holistic effort. The effort is deeply, deeply reassuring, deeply settling, deeply inspiring, that fills us with joy, fills us with well-being.

And then being in harmony with right awareness, right mindfulness, holistic awareness, and being in harmony with a holistic gathering together, unification of all of who we are. And this "all of who we are" grows and grows as and through the Eightfold Path until it gives a whole different way of knowing what's happening and knowing the potential, knowing the freedom that's available right here, right next to where we have a lack of freedom. But we know it so deeply that now there's a possibility to have a deep harmony with release itself, a deep sense of harmony with that side of us that doesn't cling to anything at all. And that harmony with non-release helps with the greatest release, the release of awakening, of liberation.

So I hope that these 10 talks have enriched for you the possibility of the Eightfold Path. There are many teachings on the Eightfold Path that are all wonderful teachings with many ways of understanding them. And one way or the other, whether we practice the Eightfold Path or we become the Eightfold Path, the Eightfold Path is one of the primary orientations, descriptions, celebrations of the holistic approach to Dharma, to include our whole life, our whole being, all of us included. Nothing is left out.

And so the Eightfold Path well warrants dipping into, going deeper into. And so you might spend some time studying it and living with it and maybe listening to these talks again to really kind of saturate yourself with yourself. The Eightfold Path is not meant to be something that's apart from you. It's supposed to be you. We become the Eightfold Path, or to say it differently, we realize the Eightfold Path is us.

Here at IMC, we give a lot of emphasis on the Eightfold Path in the form of a yearly program, about an eight or nine-month program on the Eightfold Path, studying it for one month at a time. And often, if there are enough mentors, you get a mentor to talk to once a month about the particular factor of the Eightfold Path. That usually starts in September or October. So, this year has already started, but if you're interested next year, it's a great program.

So, many thanks. I will be away next week, back at IRC. It has me listed as teaching it next week, so I'm sure we have a substitute. I'll put it on the calendar. But thank you very much, and I look forward to being here again in a week from Monday. Thank you.