Homeless and welcome to this bonus of sorts to my progressive breath awareness booster course.
This is actually a type of micro course in and of itself with all new material.
In short,
Due to changes in regulatory platform guidelines and requirements while designing and editing the main course,
It would have been more trouble than it was worth to rework the course to include the material that I now share here.
To really get the proper instructions on how to work with what you're about to hear,
Please check out the first two recordings in my progressive breath awareness booster course,
Which are the brief introduction as well as day one of five.
Both of these are free on insight timer.
Suffice it to say though,
Like the main course,
There's the questions and practice suggestion sections,
But no perception section in this recording.
The intent with such new,
Unique,
And sometimes very minutely detailed questions and practice suggestions is to challenge us to access and cultivate awareness of breath on deeper and more expansive levels.
This serves to develop greater overall breath awareness mastery in order to simply maintain a more continuous,
Bare awareness of breath on and off the meditation cushion.
Use the pauses between questions and practice ideas to contemplate and perhaps work internally with the material.
Use what's helpful while adjusting approaches accordingly.
Multiple re-listens allow pausing the recording to extend the time between pauses to further linger,
Hear,
Contemplate,
Modify,
And work with questions and practice proposals.
And now,
Questions for contemplation.
What does breath need?
What if we were to become breathless,
As in breath less,
Meaning the breath needs less?
How is breath energy comparable to other energy experienced in each and every moment?
And would it be wise to know how breath energy can be harmonized with any energy encountered?
Furthermore,
Maybe to wrangle an awareness of breath in complex and or challenging situations.
Identify,
Then adjust breath to the most helpful state,
One with a similar,
Minimally refined energetic state in order to approximate the energy instead of being in conflict with it.
Perhaps pointing out to oneself,
Breath is just like that now,
And breath is just like this now.
Since there is a seeming continuum between birth and death,
What are the connections between our first breath and then our continuing breaths,
And finally the decomposition of the body and possibly even beyond all this?
Now,
A longer group of questions to wrap up questions.
What is actually happening during breath meditation as far as the mechanics and processes?
What sense fields,
Sense organs,
Sense consciousnesses,
And objects are involved?
How does and doesn't mind,
Mind consciousness,
And mind objects factor in?
For instance,
How does breath affect consciousness,
And how does consciousness affect breath?
What sky is it that is operating?
What skandhas of body feeling perception,
Volitional formations,
And consciousness are operating in any given moment,
And how?
What all breath related phenomena is arising,
Sustaining,
And passing away?
Where are all these coming from and going?
By what means is this all experienced or not experienced,
And by whom or what?
What all and experience seems to be happening to and or from a central location,
And what doesn't,
And how and why is this?
Cycle through each of the four elements,
Earth,
Water,
Wind,
And fire,
With mindfulness of the natural breath by establishing and holding the intention of knowing and experiencing each element.
Suggestions include using each half breath per element,
Each full breath per element,
Or multiple breaths for each element.
Another possibility for working with both the elements and breath is as follows.
The air element is obvious.
Pauses at the end of the in and out breaths represent the stillness of earth element,
And the lungs take in air no matter what's in it,
Just like the earth accepts what is put upon it.
No matter what's going on around it and to it,
The lungs continue to breathe,
Pervasive and persisting like that of the earth.
The body's inbuilt,
Non-resistant,
Automatic flow of breath is the flowing path of least resistance nature of water,
And the breath's energy signifies the fire element.
Investigate the rate of fluctuation in the amount of potential and possibility of that which coincides with the gain and loss of maintaining a bare awareness of breath.
Breathe more into the process of breathing than the experience of breathing in order to connect deeper with the breath,
And investigating the who,
What,
When,
Where,
Why,
And how of the observation of the process of breathing.
Breathing in contact with nibbana,
Breathing out the most needful highest blessings for each moment.
Breathing in contact with beyond post-buddhahood,
Breathing out optimal conditions for all beings everywhere who may ever practice onward towards buddhahood.
Breathe into,
Out of,
And with the relationship the breath has with each aspect of the four foundations of mindfulness.
One,
Body.
Two,
Hedonic tone of pleasant,
Unpleasant,
Or neither of these.
Three,
Mind.
And four,
Dhammas,
Aka mind objects or phenomena.
In addition to these four foundational aspects individually,
Can this also be done all at once,
Together as a whole?
Can these individual aspects still be known at the same time when including them all together?
Temporarily create and or imagine a breathing homunculus in the lungs.
A homunculus is a representation of a small human being and historically referred to as the creation of a miniature fully formed human.
Make being aware of the breath another sort of work,
Breath awareness work,
Kind of like when approaching any other kind of work.
Perhaps look at this as physical or daily work requiring similar kinds of energy,
Along with finding and attuning to the proper and specific additional energy needed,
Just as other specific energies better aid other kinds of work.
For example,
Preparing and pacing oneself to use a chainsaw can be very helpful,
But not in the context of when all one needs to do is slice cake.
Check in with the breath as we check in with our loved ones and dear ones.
Use the breath to investigate without expectation or attachment to answers or outcomes.
Primarily leverage the breath in the body by breathing in and out of the following investigatory processes.
1.
Go to the root causes and root condition.
2.
Go to the origins and who all is involved and or what all is involved.
3.
Discover and examine the core intentions involved.
4.
Look into the following three vital strategic assessments.
What is the gratification?
What is the danger?
What is the escape?
And finally,
5.
Who benefits?
