Anapanasati Sutta Intro 2

So we are taking on one of the more important discourses of the Buddha known as the Anapanasati Sutta. The discourse on breathing mindfully. And in this, the heart of this text is his instructions for how to meditate with Breath. There's an incident where the Buddha went off into the woods by himself to go meditate for a couple of months. He said, If anybody asks what I'm doing, you can tell them I'm practicing mindfulness of breathing.

Transcript

Good morning. Thank you for your practice this morning. So we're taking on one of the most important discourses of the Buddha known as the Anapanasati Sutta and it's in this little book called the Middle-Linth Discourses of the Buddha, The Majjhima Nikaya in the Pali and the discourse is on breathing mindfully and in the heart of this text his instructions is for how to meditate with the breath and I did a little bit of that with you during our practice period this morning. Your breathing is at the center of the meditation. It's the full focus. The focus is on just breathing. So in the text there's an incident where the Buddha went off into the woods by himself to go meditate for a couple of months and as he was leaving he said to his disciples he said if anybody asks what I'm doing you can tell them that I'm practicing mindfulness of breathing. So outside of this particular discourse there isn't really much instruction on how to practice mindfulness of breathing and this discourse the instructions are pretty brief. There's not a lot of detail. It's kind of what I've been sharing slowly with you. So what that means is that different teachers over the centuries have interpreted these and outlined practice in different ways based on them. What inspired me to teach this was actually that Thich Nhat Hanh's entire Plum Village is based on this mindfulness of breathing. It's a very fundamental practice at Plum Village. So it's a beautiful outline for meditation practice and my intention here is to go through some of the points that are useful. So the focus is on meditating with the breath and breathing. So the first thing that we do is we sit down and establish some modicum of attention in the present moment and that often because my training is primarily in the Satipa Tana Sutta mindfulness of the body is the first of the four foundations of mindfulness. The way in is often through the body. So you sit down and you feel into the body and then you focus on knowing or understanding knowing or understanding what it's like knowing your experience. And so this is where you know that I'm breathing in know that I'm breathing out. So the first stage is very simple. You know you understand and know this is breathing in this is a short breath or this is a long breath. This is a tight breath or this is a expansive breath. You don't get too caught in the details of the breath just knowing this is out. This is a long breath knowing breathing in knowing breathing out the quality of it short long deep shallow. So how I understand this is at the beginning of practice as you begin tuning into your breathing you're asked simply to start noticing what your breath is like. You're not asked to change it. You're not asked to judge it. You're not asked to have a better breath. The instruction is simply pay attention to how your breath gets in this period of sitting. Get to know what it's like. Just get to know really just get to know it really well. The different circumstances and qualities in it where you feel it the most strongly. So what this does is that breathing is always always in the present moment. So if you're if you're trying to stay with the breath in the present moment what happens is you have to let go of a lot of the distractions. You know let go of the scatteredness of the mind and start focusing here in the present moment. So the simple act of getting to know your breath as it occurs in the present moment is focusing the practice. It's focusing and con and it really is the cultivation of concentration. And so this is sort of the first this is sort of shorthand really what I'm offering right now for the first two stages of the practice. It's getting to know your breath as it is and for some people simply learning the powerful art of not judging the breath just learning to be with this in a non evaluative way without criticizing it or judging it. A big thing that comes for me is boredom. You know I see that coming up and it's like oh there's the breath and I'm there up yet there's boredom being angry. You know I want it to be a particular way just learning how to be with it in a neutral way. It can be phenomenally difficult to do. So we're going to try this for a little while just this first couple of stages getting to know the breath. You know being with it. A big part of what we do when we're starting meditation is learning to not stay caught up in our thinking in our thoughts. Meditation is not what you think. You know meditation is not practice it's not a practice of thinking about your experience. And what happens is we there is kind of this phenomena of discursive thinking. The discursive thinking is thinking that's kind of evaluating what's going on. You know we assign meaning to it to what's happening. We're interpreting what's happening in the mind as we are attempting to follow the breath. So in the beginning and let's just say that we're all beginners here always cultivating beginner's mind. So in the beginning we're reigning in the mind. We're beginning to take some ownership or responsibility for our own attention not judging it as I'm such a scatterbrain. So the beginning of this practice it's not passive. It's not a passive use of your attention but it's quite active because you're just breathing in knowing this is breathing in breathing out. This is a long breath breathing in this is a short breath. And as I said on Tuesday you know I was trained in the Satipa as the primary meditation practice and that's more of a choiceless awareness practice. And usually in choiceless awareness practice we're passive in our attention. You know we're just sort of going along for the ride paying attention without preferences or compulsion or really even effort. But here in this particular way of practice we're choosing to be active with our attention. I think it's pretty significant that the instruction is just to know your breathing knowing the qualities and the characteristics of our breath. It's not something that naturally we do. And then the next part of it is not to judge it. You know we're not trying to change the breath. It doesn't say judge yourself or the breath or have it be a particular way. There's nothing in it that is about interpreting what the experience is. Just really simply know it. And what the mind does is the mind kind of protests like this is ridiculous. The breath like I have way more important things to do. You know I've got plans. I have things to figure out. I have fantasies about what meditation practice is supposed to be like. And this breath let's face it it's kind of boring. There's no monetary value to it. So it can be hard for the mind to let go of all its concerns and just really simplify things to focusing on breathing. So it's it is a big training to get to know the breath to come back to it and stay with it and just to get to know it. So it's I think it's helpful that you know in the beginning we're just doing something very simple. There's no judgment. We're just going to get to know it. Just be with it and just stay with it. And it's also a powerful teacher because the breath is so simple. Breathing is so simple compared to a lot of the things that we do. Simplicity is one of the best teachers because you'll see all of the forces of the mind getting distracted like where it gets caught in what we want to do what we want. So if we have this reference point of breathing it's just a stable steady reference point then you get to see all the beliefs and the momentum of those beliefs and all the feelings that pull you off where you get scattered from the breath. And again this is all said to be seen without judgment. You know and we see and we learn from that. We get to know that well. And as we see that it's that our most of our thinking is fairly empty. It becomes easier to come back to just this breath. So the tradition talks about the more and more that you can be with your breathing just being here your attention is your attention is going to actually start to move into the area of just the quality of breathing and what you do and doing that is that because your attention is on the breathing you're starving basically your distractions like those tendencies of mind where you're lost and preoccupied and you have your list all the concerns that you have those distractions are fueled by your energy your energy of attention right. If you focus on and rein in your attention to just the breath you're taking away the energy that is preoccupied and distracted. So your focus on just here this is a long breath this is a short breath you focus in on that and you reinforce it and then we start to get quiet things start to quiet down and just that simple act of coming back and getting to know your breath. You know it feels like a pretty radical thing to do and I know people that just have done this practice for years and they don't really do much more than that and they're pretty extraordinary people. So this is the invitation to just practice following the breath getting to know the breath in a non-judgmental way. So until we meet again I hope that you get to know your breath a bit enjoy your breath hang in there with it hang in there with it. So thank you thank you for your kind attention take some time to get some questions and comments.

Reviews

Excellent, Lisa. Really well explained Thank you 🌟