This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Radiating Love; Eightfold Path (3 of 10) Holistic Orientation. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Guided Meditation: Radiating Love; Eightfold Path (3 of 10) Holistic Orientation

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 15, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Radiating Love (link)

Hello everyone and welcome to this morning's meditation. Something unique, I think wonderful and very important, can happen in meditation. And that is, with your eyes closed, perhaps sitting centered on yourself, that you yourself as a meditator, as an existing person, a living, breathing person, become for these few minutes the most important person in the world. Not as a form of conceit. The opposite of conceit. Conceit diminishes us.

But rather, there's a way in which the whole world, our world that we live in, begins with ourselves. If the heart or deep inside there's a light of love or compassion, and if that light gets turned on, if you could slow down the speed of light, you'll see that it goes outwards first and touches the edges of the heart, moves on into the torso, and spreads through the body. The first thing that the love encounters, the light encounters, is all the stuff that is you, a psychophysical being. And you're as important as any other being. All beings are valuable, and you are valuable. Your awareness radiates your love, and it runs into yourself first. And if you limit that love, if you diminish it right there as it passes through you, less is available for the world.

The state of your mind, how you are, has a lot to do with how you see the world and how you relate to the world, and even how you might help create a better world. See with hostility, see with ill will, see with greedy desires, and you'll see a world that is colored by those things. See a world without greedy desires, without ill will, without any hostility, and our world will not only look different, but we contribute to a better world, a fuller world.

Meditation is not a simple step towards stress reduction. It's not so we can just feel a little calmer. I'd like to suggest for this meditation that it is a radical, revolutionary stance, a position that undermines or offers a radical alternative to business as usual in this world. So meditation is a response to the world. It's a mature, dedicated, clear, invaluable time to be the alternative to greed, hate, and delusion. You are important.

So to sit and meditate this time, not to be stressed, not to strain, but to be inspired, delighted that it's invaluable to sit here practicing, letting go of any hostility that might arise in the mind, including towards yourself. Letting go of any ill will, including to yourself. Letting go of any greed, any lust, any strong desire, and to do so as a way of being here in a full, revolutionary way.

If you want to see the world change, change the person who's closest to you. Care for it. Be careful. Meet the person that's closest to you, yourself, with goodwill, genuine goodwill that arises from the depths of your being. Meet this person closest to you, yourself, with compassion and love that also arises from the depths of your being. This is invaluable. This time now, these next minutes, are precious.

Assuming a meditation posture, a posture that respects the magnitude of the work that we're doing in meditation, that respects it, that cares for you. Gently closing the eyes and to settle into this moment, to settle in here with this person, yourself. Taking a few long, slow, deep breaths. Relaxing as you exhale.

Letting your breathing return to normal. And on the exhales, soften, relax in your body. A relaxing, softening that connects you more to now and here. Relaxing the thinking mind. Softening the deep emotional tensions, tightness, pressure.

And then from the depths of your being, can you awaken goodwill, kindness, compassion, love? That at a minimum takes the form of wanting to have kindness and love, wishing it was here. That itself is an expression of love. And from the depth of your being, with a reference point of goodwill, compassion, sit and meditate, letting go of any ill will, any hostility, any strong desire that interferes with the light of goodwill, the light of love, care, kindness. Riding on each inhale and each exhale, where the meeting of inhale and awareness is a meeting of care, love. Where the meeting point of awareness with the exhale is a meeting of love and care, kindness, as if this is the most important thing to do right now. To be present without any ill will, without being caught in desire. Just here.

The chances are that if you're thinking a lot in meditation, your thoughts have nothing to do with how valuable it is to care for yourself right now as you are in the present. That this time now is the only time to be present for yourself with kind awareness, to fill yourself with being aware, free of desire and ill will.

And whatever is difficult, whatever is not goodwill, not compassion, it's okay. Meet that with goodwill, with love, care. Find the deepest place within from which you can meet all things with kindness, love, care.

And as we come to the end of this sitting, if you can imagine that there's a small light deep at the center of your being, a small light of love or compassion, care, goodwill. And that gently, that light brightens outwards to fill yourself. Every breath that you breathe in, the light spreads through your body. And when it's full within, then in every exhale, the light spreads out into the world. Filling yourself with kindness and goodwill on the in-breath, spreading that goodwill into the world on the exhale.

Letting your light of kindness spread out into the world to gently touch or shine on the goodness and preciousness of every being that comes into your view. That you're oriented, disposed to view all beings with goodwill because that's what flows from the depth of your being.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings be free of suffering, of oppression, poverty. May all beings be free of those who see them with hostility. May all beings be seen with care.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Eightfold Path (3 of 10) Holistic Orientation (link)

Hello and welcome to this third talk on the Eightfold Path. I just finished this guided meditation that I hoped offered you a sense of wonderful, delightful seriousness. But how serious it is to meditate. Not taking it so seriously that it's dour or heavy, but serious so we're inspired to really show up and be present for ourselves in meditation, so that we have what it takes to be present in this world with an orientation of care and kindness and goodwill.

This second factor of the Eightfold Path is usually called intention, resolve. Occasionally I've seen thought. So usually they use the word "right intention," "right resolve," "right thought." I'm choosing to translate the word sammā¹ not as "right" but as "holistic" because it's what encompasses the whole of who we are. It's an attitude or an approach or an activity that we do that includes everything, the whole life, our whole lived life.

So today I'm going to translate the second factor of the Eightfold Path. The Pāli word is sankappa². I'll translate it as "orientation." So, the holistic orientation. I spent a fair amount of time trying to understand what this sankappa might mean. And the way it appears in the suttas, it's the precursor. It's the condition that engages or orients or directs our thinking. So first, we're kind of like, if I hear a sound, then I turn and orient my attention to the sound, then I have a thought. "That's a car horn," "that's a train."

If I go through the world wanting to buy something—many years ago I wanted a futon couch—and I wasn't actively, consciously looking, but something inside of me was oriented to noticing futon couch stores while driving down the streets of the city. So there's a kind of an attitude, it's a disposition, but more like an orientation.

There are three orientations for the holistic orientation: the orientation to not be caught in sensual desire, so an orientation towards freedom from sensual desire; an orientation to kindness, goodwill; and an orientation towards compassion.

It's possible to have hostility towards someone, to really feel angry and upset. But while we have those feelings, our orientation is to try to see how we can talk to them, be with them, without that hostility dominating our speech and our actions. We're not being animated by the hostility. We're being oriented or animated by a whole other area that we're committed to, that feels valuable, that seems much more important. We're not oriented around ill will for people. We're oriented towards goodwill.

It's kind of like orienteering in the wilderness, where we might have a compass that orients us to going the direction we want to go. We have that as our bearing, we're oriented in the right way, but now the terrain requires us to go in all kinds of directions, sometimes even backwards, and around and up and down and sideways because of the obstacles in the terrain. But we are oriented towards the direction from the compass. So we know where we're going, and we make choices with that in mind.

The first limb of the Eightfold Path is holistic view, the view that was able to take it all in, including how we suffer and where there's freedom from suffering, where there's clinging and there's freedom from clinging at the same time. It's kind of standing fully, completely in ourselves, so we see it all. We have a holistic point of view. Not easy, but this is what the practice is bringing us to. And once we have this holistic view where we see that suffering and clinging is not the whole story, where we're no longer inclined to invest in our suffering, to identify with our suffering exclusively, we're not going to invest anymore in clinging or identifying with clinging or justifying clinging because we clearly see there's an alternative. It's already right here. It's part of us.

The stronger the mindfulness, the stronger the way we're really present, the more we'll see that we're not defined by these negative mind states that we can have. As we see that, we see there's another possibility, and that can give birth to having a holistic orientation: to be guided by, be disposed towards, to be motivated by, to have intentions, have thoughts, have considerations in a certain direction. So the north star is compassion, goodwill, mettā³. The orientation is freedom from sensual desires. Not necessarily avoiding sensual pleasures, but not being caught in them, not being imprisoned by them, not being limited by them.

As the holistic view becomes stronger, the corollary, or what follows, is this holistic orientation that knows clearly what's better for us, knows clearly what is the best that we can have, that knows clearly where the deepest sources of life, the deepest sources of what animates us, can come from. And even though it might not always be there, we know well enough that we have it as our north star. We have it as our compass point: kindness, goodwill, well-wishing, mettā, care, compassion, karuṇā⁴.

These are not meant to be overlays onto our experience, like pretending or acting as if we have compassion and goodwill. They're supposed to be the opposite. They come from the wellsprings inside of us. That's possible when we have the holistic view. Then there's a sense of being whole, complete. We start gathering all the pieces of ourselves together so that the best in us has a chance to inform us, to guide us, to show us the way.

For the Buddha, finding the way to freedom, to a fulfilled life, to a holistic life where we feel deeply satisfied, involves freedom from sensual desires. So being oriented around that. It involves freedom from ill will, being oriented to well-wishing, to mettā. And being oriented away from cruelty, and instead be oriented towards non-cruelty, which the tradition calls compassion, karuṇā, and I call care.

The idea is these aren't beliefs that we take on, though they could be because those beliefs are maybe better than the alternatives. But rather, we have done the inner work to identify these qualities of compassion, goodwill, and freedom from sensual desires as being really healthy. It's a way of having a healthy sense of the whole, a healthy sense of integration, of inclusion. Nothing left out. It's an alternative to clinging. As soon as we cling, we have things that are left out. As soon as we cling, we are separated from the whole. We are now narrowly focused, tight, limited. And this practice of mindfulness is to be filled and open up to the whole picture. The good, the bad, and the ugly—everything can be included. And something very special happens then. Then we have a chance to recognize the deep wellsprings inside of our interpersonal relationships. The wellsprings of care. Caring for our interpersonal lives. Caring for the world around us. Carrying it with goodwill. Caring with it with compassion. Caring for it without being caught in sensual desires.

The first limb of the Eightfold Path, right view, is primarily understood to be deeply personal. The second step of the Eightfold Path now begins to spread the lessons of the right view into our interpersonal life, out into the world. And so this is foundational to the whole dharma: not just to keep it personal, but also to let it radiate from us or be inclusive of us as interpersonal beings in our interpersonal relationships. So that we are oriented towards compassion, oriented towards loving-kindness, oriented towards freedom.

And these orientations, these ways of setting the compass, these ways of having a north star, set the stage for the rest of the Eightfold Path. So, holistic orientation is the second fold of the Eightfold Path. The word we use in Pāli is aṅga⁵ for the path, but we say in English "eightfold." And what I think of is that as we go through the Eightfold Path, we're unfolding the paper. It's folded eight ways. And now we're opening it up and opening it up. And if you've ever tried to fold paper into eight, you know, keep doing it in half, no matter how big it is, it gets really tight and small to fold it eight times in half. And this wonderful thing happens as we unfold it.

So, thank you very much, and I look forward to being here tomorrow.