While offering a guided meditation, Gil Fronsdal traces the movement between knowing, feeling, and relaxing in our practice.
Today’s podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/beherenow and get on your way to being your best self.
This week on the BHNN Guest Podcast, Gil Fronsdal dives into:
- The 3 levels of mindfulness practice (knowing, sensing, relaxing)
- Considering what it feels like to be thinking
- Knowing the changing phenomena of the moment
- Allowing yourself to be both alert and relaxed
- Feeling the activation of our thinking minds
- Calming the brain and body
“You’re just kind of flowing along with the changing phenomena of the moment. And the changing phenomena of the moment might just be the changing sensations of breathing. You’re just knowing them in a very, very simple way, maybe even a non-cognitive way. You’re not necessarily thinking about them, having words, but you’re really letting it register, this is the changing sensation of breathing.” –Gil Fronsdal
This episode was originally published on Dharmaseed
About Gil Fronsdal:
Gil Fronsdal is the co-teacher for the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California; he has been teaching since 1990. He has practiced Zen and Vipassana in the U.S. and Asia since 1975. He was a Theravada monk in Burma in 1985, and in 1989 began training with Jack Kornfield to be a Vipassana teacher. Gil teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he is part of its Teachers Council. Gil was ordained as a Soto Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1982, and in 1995 received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. He currently serves on the SF Zen Center Elders’ Council. In 2011 he founded IMC’s Insight Retreat Center. He is the author of The Issue at Hand, essays on mindfulness practice; A Monastery Within; a book on the five hindrances called Unhindered; and the translator of The Dhammapada, published by Shambhala Publications. You may listen to Gil’s talks on Audio Dharma.
Photo by gilitukha
More Be Here Now Network Podcasts:
Lama Rod Owens covers the dharma of freedom, loving ourselves, ancestral work, and the power of meditation: Dedication to Liberation
JoAnna Hardy shares a guided meditation all around the first foundation of mindfulness – mindfulness of the body: First Foundation Guided Meditation
Through bearing witness, love & service, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee shares how we can collectively heal the crisis of disconnection & ecological devastation: Love & Service
Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh explores how we can joyfully bring mindfulness into everyday activities like phone calls, driving, and walking: The Ojai Foundation Presents: Under the Teaching Tree with Thich Nhat Hanh