BY: LARRY ROSENBERG
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Additional Note:
This book is a discourse on the Anapanasati Sutra. This sutra “constitutes the basic meditative instructions of the Buddha, and so serves as a fundamental vehicle for gaining insight into the core teachings of Buddhism.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn
4 THOUGHTS
1. To Contemplate Breathing is to Contemplate Life Itself
“This quality of mindfulness, of just being with an experience, is what the meditator arouses when assuming the seated posture. At first the meditator brings his or her awareness to an extremely simple process.
“Always mindful, the meditator breathes in; mindful, the meditator breathes out.”
It sounds simple, of course, but it’s actually—as anyone knows who has tried it—a profound and difficult practice. The fact is that when we focus on the breath, we are focusing on the life force. Life begins with our first breath and will end after our last. To contemplate breathing is to contemplate life itself.”
This insightful passage is essentially the premise of the whole book: When we focus on our breath, we focus on our life force. It’s extremely practical yet deeply spiritual. Mundane yet enlightening.
It’s also essential to note that this doesn’t require altering the breath, just watching it. It’s mindful breathing, not “breathwork.” (We’ll cover this more in Thought 3 and the Life-Changing Idea.)
And as simple as “following the breath” sounds, it’s actually quite challenging.
Perhaps this is why the Buddha was still meditating twenty years after reaching enlightenment. And when asked what type of meditation he practiced, he replied, “Mindfulness of breathing.”
2. Where You Should Follow Your Breathing
“A number of beginning students ask where in the body they should follow the breath. I’ve read widely in the Buddha’s teachings and consulted a number of scholars, and nowhere does he give a precise answer to this question. Nevertheless, a number of traditional teachers are very specific. Some say the place to follow it is the abdomen, others say the nostrils or chest region. As far as I’m concerned, they are all right. It is really just a matter of individual preference.
Having worked with any number of students through the years, I feel that meditators should follow the breathing where it seems most vivid and comfortable to them, where it is most likely to hold their attention. None of these places will always, in every sitting, remain the most vivid. But it is important not to keep jumping from one to another, feeding an already restless mind. Station your attention at the nose, chest, or abdomen, and remain there with some consistency.”
If you want to get started with mindfulness of breathing, this is about as practical as it gets.
Where we focus on the breath is not as important as being consistent.
So, we should pick the place that is most vivid and comfortable (that’s the abdomen for me) “and remain there with some consistency.”
***
P.S. If you get started, don’t forget from Thought #1 that, although it seems simple enough, it is actually “a profound and difficult practice.”
3. How to Get from Point A to Point B: Be Fully at A
“This is the deepest paradox in all of meditation: we want to get somewhere—we wouldn’t have taken up the practice if we didn’t—but the way to get there is just to be fully here. The way to get from point A to point B is really to be at A. When we follow the breathing in the hope of becoming something better, we are compromising our connection to the present, which is all we ever have. If your breathing is shallow, your mind and body restless, let them be that way, for as long as they need to. Just watch them.” (my emphasis)
This is the paradigm shift I love about this book. Instead of using our breath “in the hope of becoming something better,” we just use it to be here with how things are. Then, paradoxically, we will get better.
To get from point A to point B, we just have to be fully at point A.
And point A is the breath. We don’t have to change it, just watch it.
4. My Favorite Breathing Parable Ever
“An ancient teaching from India points to this truth. There was a conference of all the human faculties, all the senses, which in the Indian tradition are six: the five senses plus the mind. As at many meetings, they first had to decide who would be in charge. Sight popped up and put in its bid, creating beautiful images that had everyone enraptured. Smell arose and created powerful and haunting aromas that left everyone tingling with anticipation. But taste could top that, with astounding and delectable flavors from all the world’s cuisines. Hearing created exquisite harmonies that brought everyone to tears, and the body brought on physical sensations that had everyone in ecstasy, and the mind spun out intellectual theories that took on beauty by the depths of the truths they expressed.
Along came the breath—not even one of the senses!—and said it wanted to be in charge. All it could present was the simple in-and-out breath, not terribly impressive in the face of everything else. No one even noticed it. The other senses got into a tremendous argument about which one of them would be chosen. The breath in its disappointment began walking away. And the images began to fade, the tastes lost their savor, the sounds diminished. . . . “Wait,” the senses called out. “Come back. You can lead. We need you.” And the breath came back and took its proper place.” (my emphasis)
That is all 🙏
1 LIFE-CHANGING IDEA
How it Should Be, and Letting Breath (and life) Unfold Naturally
“Our tendency is to ride the breath, push it along, help it out, especially when we hear that the breath is part of this marvelous sutra, that it is the life force itself and can lead us to enlightenment. … We hear that a deep breath relaxes the body and figure that an accomplished meditator will be breathing deeply all the time, so—sometimes very subtly—we try to make the breath a little deeper.
That isn’t the instruction. The instruction is to let it be, to surrender to the breathing.”
I felt like Larry was looking right at me with this passage 😂 I definitely find myself trying to breathe certain ways, because that’s how I “should be breathing.”
But the instruction is to just let the breath be, to surrender to it.
And more generally, I think we can interpret breathing in this passage as a metaphor for all aspects of life.
We might ask: In what ways am I trying to make something “the way I think it should be” rather than accepting it how it is? (I have about a million.)
Then, we can use Larry’s advice, literally or metaphorically:
“If we can learn to allow the breath to unfold naturally without tampering with it, then in time we may be able to do that with other aspects of our experience: we might learn to let the feelings be, let the mind be.”
Life-changing, indeed.
1 STACK OF MEMORABLE QUOTES
“The fact is that when we focus on the breath, we are focusing on the life force. Life begins with our first breath and will end after our last. To contemplate breathing is to contemplate life itself.”
“But when you learn to stay with the breathing, to sink deep within your consciousness, you find that there is an intrinsic happiness there that has nothing to do with sensual pleasures, and it gives your life a whole new balance.”
“Practice should open us to a fuller life, not cut us off from it altogether.”
“The breath is a gateway into the present moment, making our attention to it greater, not less.”
“Zen Master Hogen said that the whole universe is in the breath. If you really pay attention to it, it takes you to its immaculate source.”
“The act of breathing begins our life as we come out of the womb; in our last moment, when we cease breathing, our life is over. It only makes sense that the breath should also have a profound influence on all the moments in between.”
“Thich Nhat Hanh says he has been watching the breath for fifty years and it only grows in interest.”
“He let me see that because the breath is so unassuming, I had been undervaluing it. I was looking for a complicated path to enlightenment, when this simple one was right before me.”
“We might say (every pun intended) that the richness lies right beneath our noses in any and every moment.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn
“When you’re feeling confusion, don’t see it as interfering with your practice. It is your practice; it is your life in that moment.”
“We’re all breathing. The instruction is just to know that we are, not in an intellectual sense, but to be aware of the simple sensation, the in-breath and the out-breath.”
“Something happens when mindfulness touches breathing. Its quality changes for the better. […] The breath becomes pleasant; it is enjoyable just to sit and breathe. […] The body, the mind, and the breath begin to coalesce. They each partake of the other, so that it is difficult to distinguish among them.”
“This is the deepest paradox in all of meditation: we want to get somewhere—we wouldn’t have taken up the practice if we didn’t—but the way to get there is just to be fully here.”
“Saint Francis of Assisi had a simpler way of putting it: “It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.””
“As the breath goes, so goes the body.”