Anapanasati: Ancient Breath Meditation

"I am content with this practice. It helps one to develop persistence & the attaining of greater states of peace & the realization of the unrealized"(Buddha)

Transcript

A few years ago,

Two Harvard psychologists by the name of Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert found that people spend almost 50% of their lives thinking about something other than what they're actually doing.

They also found that being in this state,

Known as default mode network,

Produces a mind that is frankly unhappy,

And that when people are happiest,

They are engaged with what they're doing.

In contrast with other species,

We humans spend a great deal of time thinking about what isn't actually occurring around us.

We think about things that have happened in the past or speculate about the future,

And it seems that this form of mind wandering doesn't bring us a great deal of inner peace.

Fortunately,

We have an alternative to mind wandering.

Some psychologists know it as flow or task positive state,

But we know it as concentration.

We focus on a stream of sensations,

And it keeps us from getting lost in thought.

It keeps us anchored to the present.

One of the oldest meditations that cultivate concentration is known as the Anapanasati,

And it dates back to the oldest suttas in the Pali canon.

Anapana means to breathe in and out,

And sati means to be fully aware of the sensations.

So there are four stages of the Anapanasati.

Becoming aware of the full breath and relaxing the body using it is the first stage.

The second stage is to use the breath to develop pleasant feelings.

The third is to use the breath to change our state of mind from agitated or distracted to present,

Spacious and relaxed.

And finally,

To use the breath as a way to observe thoughts from a detached perspective.

When we develop these skills,

We wind up cultivating some important tools.

We learn to sustain awareness,

Keeping our attention on an object.

We learn to what's called glad in the mind,

And we learn to release from the thoughts and dramas that cause conflict and agitation.

Alright so let's put aside talking about the Anapanasati and actually practicing it.

Close the eyes,

Bring your awareness to your posture.

There's no right or wrong posture,

Except I'd like to recommend that you keep your head in line with the hips below.

When the head starts to drift in front of the shoulders and the belly,

It creates strain in the neck and the shoulders eventually and also leads to a kind of drifting off during the meditation.

Balance leads not only to greater physical ease,

But it also helps keep us present and alert.

Now let's take a nice long smooth in-breath through the nose and hold it.

And if you'd like,

Squinch the muscles in the face,

The arms,

The legs,

Tighten and then as we breathe out through the mouth,

Relax.

Take a moment to note if there's anything you'd like to adjust.

For example,

If your clothes are too tight or there's anything about your posture you'd like to fix.

And then see if you can allow the breath to take on a natural rhythm.

We're not controlling it.

The body is in charge of the breath.

And the mind's job is to simply know whether we're breathing in long or short.

That's the very simple instruction that the Buddha left at first.

Just knowing whether we're breathing in long or short.

It's clear pleasant.

That's a really good description of good Mommy,

Couldn't have done it in practice.

It's helpful at this time to see if we can expand the awareness into the body,

By which I mean try to make the sensations of the body as clear,

Detailed as you can.

The more detailed the sensations are,

The less we'll feel like we're observing the body from above.

More we'll begin to feel like we're stretching awareness into the full breathing body.

Back to the aş海шие,

As currently in Attila padai.

Translation by Now the Buddha's next set of instructions were to see the Buddha's face.

How to make the breath feel good in the body and to relax the entire breathing body.

Now what we're going to do is simply as an example find a few regions of the body to see how we can make these areas feel comfortable using the breath.

So bring your awareness to the chest,

The cavity around the sternum,

Above the belly,

And just note the sensations of inhalation and exhalation.

See if you can feel with the inhalation the expansion of the chest and then as you breathe out release any tension,

Tightness,

Contraction that you can in the exhalation.

So inhalation brings awareness and life and exhalation brings ease.

Move your awareness now to the belly.

Find the sensation of breathing in the abdomen and see if during the in-breath you can feel wide area of sensations in the belly and as you breathe out soften nice softened belly.

Relax.

No tightness.

So again the in-breath is about awareness and life.

The out-breath is about releasing and restoring ease.

Let's try a completely unrelated area,

An area we don't associate with breathing.

So bring your awareness to the forehead.

See if you could imagine what it would feel like or get the sense of the breath in this area of the body.

What would it feel like if you breathed in through the forehead and then as you feel the exhalation in the body see if you can soften any tightness in the brow.

Let's try this with the eyes.

As you breathe in feel into this area of the body feeling the micro muscles around the eyes and the eyes themselves and then as you breathe out relax the micro muscles around the eyes so it feels like the eyes are just floating in two warm pools of water.

In brings awareness out brings release.

So move around the body and see if you can use the breath to bring awareness and ease to different parts.

Another example try the shoulders.

See if you can feel during the in-breath the slight lift of the shoulders and as you breathe out see if you can use the exhalation to relax massage this area of the body.

Now when you practice this meditation without guidance you could spend as long as you like to develop ease in the body using the inhalation and exhalation.

But for the sake of time let's move on to the second stage the second set of practices which is to use the breath to produce relaxed feelings.

So bring awareness to the feeling tone that you're experiencing in this moment.

The feeling tone is essentially the way the body and mind tell you if you're comfortable or uncomfortable.

If you feel good or bad about any given situation in your life.

Sometimes when we're greeted with bad news for example we feel the belly tighten the shoulders contract the facial muscles squinch or if we hear good news we feel the body soften the shoulders relax chest widens the face bears a smile.

So bring your awareness to whatever is telling you how you feel in this moment.

And see now if you can use the breath to relax these embodied moods or feelings.

Spread the breath through the front of the body to produce a state of emotional ease.

For the third stage of the practice we're going to bring our attention to the mind itself.

What kind of awareness has been observing the breath?

Have you felt jumpy or tired?

Have you been distracted or present?

Does the mind feel small and contracted or spacious and wide?

Think of the mind like the sky.

Sometimes the mind is cloudy,

Foggy and sometimes it's bright and clear.

So how can we use the breath to bring ease to the mind?

Well if we're tired what we can do is focus on the in-breath.

Take deep full in-breaths and hold for an extra pause before we breathe out.

But if we've been anxious and jumpy see if we can use the breath to cultivate ease in the mind by extending the length of the out-breath as long and smooth as we can.

So use the breath to settle or energize or bring balance to the mind.

The fourth and final stage of the Anapanasati is to use the breath to cultivate the detached awareness of our thoughts.

This kind of awareness is not the usual way we pay attention to thoughts in that we don't get lost in the content of the thoughts and drift back into all those fantasies and planning predictions and memories.

Instead we use the sensations of the breath and the body as an anchor that keeps us from floating too far away from the present and we simply notice how different thoughts arise and pass in the mind.

The two places many of us are aware of our thoughts is we kind of see visual thoughts behind the forehead as if there's a movie screen in the mind.

That's where we might see our memories,

Our fantasies.

Some people experience it as a lightness and we hear our audio thoughts,

Our inner chatter near the ears.

So bring your attention to this area while maintaining an awareness of whether you're breathing in or out in the body.

This requires some practice.

If you find that when thoughts arise you easily drop the breath it means you don't have enough awareness,

Enough of an anchor in the body.

The key is balance here.

Allowing thoughts to pass through using the breath sensations as a way to detach,

Release,

And to experience the impermanence of all mental content.

There's no need to react or judge or in any way agree or disagree when a thought arises.

Just know what it is and let it pass.

It's an awareness without any judgment,

An awareness without any need to resist or react.

It just observes.

So as we move into this awareness it's important to remember that all of us will experience times when the mind is kidnapped by a thought,

Will lose awareness of the breath and the body,

And will wind up entirely somewhere else,

Lost in a memory,

A speculation,

Planning,

Or just foggy drifting.

There's no need to feel any frustration or sense that anything wrong has happened.

The practice is built entirely upon the principles of patience,

Kindness,

And appreciation.

Just how wonderful it is to develop tranquility and ease within.

Even if our meditation is difficult,

Filled with agitation or sleepiness,

Simply to practice,

To bring awareness to the breath,

Awareness,

Body,

The detached observation of thoughts,

Is to cultivate an entirely skillful way of being.

When we have peace within,

We relate to everyone else in our lives with greater patience and less reactivity.

And so our practice is for the benefit of all.

Our practice is blameless.

Reviews

Paraphrasing, If you forget to breathe you don’t have enough awareness. Skillful guidance.

Dude I do your meditation Twice a day morning and nights without fail, it's a priority, any recommendations to further my meditation practice would be greatly appreciated. Mike

An excellent meditation practice to guide in using the breath to deepen concentration, relaxation and awareness. Thank you so much.

Thank you. This was clear, practical and immediately accessible.

Enjoyed and clarified the anapanasatti practice. Thank you 🙏🏽

Nicely paced and didactic. We learn how to harness the energy and aliveness of our breath to "the benefit of all", as said in the meditation.

This makes sense for me of the anapanasati. I will be working with it for some time

Good relaxing practice for your body and mind. Thank you!

That’s a really good introduction to Anapanasati. Thank you.

Very clear instructions coming from the Buddha himself, that explain the core and the stages of this type of meditation. A great way to understand the meaning of ‘anchor’ and the process of practice itself. Thank you!

A nice simple introduction into the 16 steps in 4 stages, breath, body, inner emotional state, and mental state.

This practice always helps me slow down and bring a kind attention to the sensations and thoughts in my background awareness.

If you want to learn more about anapanasati!,this is a very good starting point.

Very good. A lot packed into 30”! Good instruction for further work with breath and awareness. Thank you.

Excellent, full of useful indications about vipassana meditation. Also really interesting for experienced practicioners.

Just the right amount of instruction and silence. Will come back to this regularly. Thank you 🙏🏻

Amazing as always, thank you for sharing your knowledge 🙏

What a meditation. I’ll be back for sure.

This is such a terrific one; relaxing, informative and a great help in building one’s practice.

This was wonderful. Sometimes it is so beneficial to go back to basics. Thank you.