We're focusing on one of the basic topics of meditation practice in all the many forms of Buddhism but certainly going back to the earliest form that this tradition is derived from and that's the meditation on breathing.
The text that we're exploring kind of piece by piece is the Anapanasati Sutta which literally means discourse on mindfulness of breathing in and breathing out.
And the instruction offers 16 steps and they're divided into four categories called tetrads.
And these four tetrads they correlate with the four foundations of mindfulness which I'm offering on Wednesdays.
So the first one has to do with the body and the second with feelings,
The third with the mind and the fourth with the unfolding process of liberation.
So one way to understand the tetrads is to recognize first of all there's kind of like three ways really to understand the tetrads to recognize what's happening in these four areas of the body.
So the body,
The feelings,
The mind and then the mind objects sort of the concepts,
The views.
And then the second way of understanding is to experience what's happening in these four areas.
So we first recognize what's happening,
Body,
Feelings,
Mind and objects,
Then to experience it fully.
And then the third is to relax,
Is to relax.
So recognize,
Feel and relax.
So as we go through each of these four tetrads this is the instruction,
This is the way of understanding and working with them to my understanding.
I'm sure there's other views.
So basically it's not that complicated.
You know we've been practicing with the first two instructions so far.
So breathing in long,
One understands I breathe in long.
And then breathing out long,
One understands I breathe out long.
And then as we relax with just those long breaths and observing the long breath,
Breathing in short,
One understands I breathe in short.
Not because there's stress in the breath but because you've actually relaxed.
So we recognize the long breath,
We experience the long breath and we relax with it and then we recognize the short breath because the long breath is now moved on and become more relaxed and become a short breath and one understands I breathe out short and breathe in short.
So the focus has just been on breathing.
And what happens next,
All the steps really are within the breathing,
Being with the breath.
It's the thread,
The breath is the thread that runs through all of the instructions as we move forward.
So the breath is kind of keeping us center and we can start to notice what's happening in the periphery that the breath keeps us from getting distracted.
In a way,
I think a useful analogy,
It's kind of like in the same way that we put oil in our cars,
Maybe some of you have an electric car and this may not be pertinent,
But in the same way that we put oil in our cars to keep the engine running.
The breath is like this lubricant of the mind.
It keeps the mind soft and running smoothly.
So the idea is that the thread that runs through all of our lives and what we can keep coming back to regardless of what's going on is our breathing.
If we're aware of our breathing,
It's much more difficult to get lost in our preoccupations.
And often when we get lost in those preoccupations,
There's often an emotional concern connected to it.
And when that happens,
The most common thing that we do is we hold our breath.
So if you're present and aware of your breathing,
You're less likely to hold your breath.
And if you're not holding your breath,
You're less likely to get caught in your preoccupations.
So just sort of staying with this thread as we move into the second tetrad next week,
Staying with this thread of breath.
And so the next step is that it's kind of like using our peripheral awareness to track what else is going on.
So we've got our breath,
That's our thread.
But,
And again,
I'm going to use this analogy of driving.
When you're driving your car,
Your primary attention is on what's ahead of you.
But you're also aware of the periphery.
You know that there are other cars around you,
And you kind of know the general distance of the cars.
You know when it becomes early evening and it starts to get dark,
You recognize that it's getting dark and you have to act to turn on your lights.
But still the primary focus is on the one thing you're doing,
Which is to be,
You know,
Just driving.
But you can be aware of the periphery without a lot of effort.
So the third instruction is one trains experiencing the whole body.
One trains,
I shall breathe in,
One trains experiencing the whole body,
Breathing out,
Experiencing the whole body.
So we can pay attention to what's going on in the periphery and the body as we use the anchor on the breath.
So the peripheral attention is the feelings in the body,
The holding patterns in the body,
The posture.
You know,
Oftentimes we end up curled over in practice.
And after a while of experiencing the whole body,
You might notice those tensions.
You know,
There's tensions in the body.
There's pain in the body.
So then the next step is breathing in,
One relaxes the bodily tensions.
Breathing out,
One relaxes the bodily tensions.
And this is very helpful because as we relax our attention,
The mind starts to relax.
And it's a lot easier to stay present in the moment,
Stay focused on the breathing when we're relaxed.
You know,
When the body is tense,
The mind jumps around,
And it's hard to focus.
So relaxing,
Such a wonderful part of this practice.
The first tetrad is to focus and get to know our breathing,
Which we've been doing now for a couple weeks.
I think we've been doing it,
You know,
For a couple years,
Some of us for a couple of decades.
And then starting to bring our peripheral awareness,
Staying with your breath,
You become aware of the body.
And when the time is right,
You relax the body,
Relax the body and you relax into whatever's presenting into the present moment.
So what's so wonderful about this particular teaching is that each of these four stages ends with something in the family of like relaxing.
You know,
So you experience your experience,
And then you relax.
I just think that that's just so awesome.
So this journey of breath that we're doing could be seen as a way of progressively relaxing and calming deeper and deeper into our lives,
Really.
Because as soon as we're finished here,
We take our bodies and we go into our day.
And maybe for the first hour of our day,
If we stay with our experience,
We can really stay with it in a relaxed way.
And then it becomes the habit of the mind.
It becomes the habit of the body.
So there's this pattern going through these stages,
This pattern of relaxing.
So for this week,
The remainder of this week,
Experience your body.
The invitation is to train in experiencing the whole body while you're breathing in and out.
And we can do this in a variety of ways.
You know,
While you're waiting in line at the grocery store,
Or at the doctor's office,
Or whatever exercise you're doing,
Experiencing the whole body,
Breathing in and out,
And training the mind to relax.
Breathing in,
One calms the body.
Breathing out,
One calms the body.
So next week,
We'll enter into the second stage,
The second tetrad of experiencing your mind.
So for now,
Let's just stay with being with the breath,
Being with the body,
And working with this beautiful practice of relaxing.
So thank you for your your kind attention this morning,
And I'll open it up now for questions or comments.
