Mindfulness Of Breathing - Onward Leading

We come to the final step of ānāpānasati, the sixteenth step of mindfulness of breathing. The most common translation in English is something like: Observing relinquishment, one trains: I will breathe in. Observing relinquishment, one trains: I will breathe out.

This word translated as relinquishment has a double meaning. It means letting go or and it also means generosity, to give.

Transcript

So good morning. It's nice to sit with you this morning. So we've come to the final step of the 16 Steps of Mindfulness of Breathing. Step 16. And the most common translation in English is something like, Observing relinquishment, One trains, I will breathe in. Observing relinquishment, One trains, I will breathe out. And this word translated as relinquishment has a double meaning. It means letting go. And it also means generosity to give. In the passage on this last step, It says, A noble disciple is someone who has come now towards the end of these 16 steps. Noble disciples recollect, Consider their own generosity like this. It is truly my good fortune and gain that in a world of people obsessed with greed, I dwell freely, Generous, Open handed, Delighting in giving, Devoted to charity, Delighted in giving and sharing. So relinquishment also means generosity to give. And in the last four steps of this anapanasati, This mindfulness of breathing, As we settle in, Maybe having gotten concentrated at some point, Quiet and still, We then come to a stage where it feels best kind of not to work on meditation anymore. You know, We don't have to work, We just settle back and observe. We're in the process of our life in the flow of life. You know, Observing how it's transient, Changing. Thoughts come, Feelings come. Moment by moment experience just changing. And at some point, And we talked about this a couple weeks ago, Last week, Actually, There's a fading away of clinging. There's a fading of wanting. That fading away happens up to the point where our greed and our aversion stops. And that that's kind of like a qualitative experience of sort of wow, It stopped. There's a stopping of these unhealthy movements of the mind and of the heart. And often what comes with that is like, This is good, This is right. This feels healthy. There's an inner psychological freedom when we stop these unhealthy movements of our mind. And if you read the teachings of the Buddha, You'll see that when he talks about what we let go of. He doesn't talk about like letting go of things so much. Like hardly at all. We don't get like we don't get rid of or let go of our material wealth, Our friendships, Our relationships. What we let go of what we relinquish is these unwholesome psychological states, These things inside of us in our daily life. And in a practice that I really like, That kind of encompasses to some degree these four steps. These last four steps of mindfulness of breathing comes from an English monk named Ajahn Amaro. And he said something like this. He said, Set your mind at ease. And then notice what takes you away from that. So set your mind at ease. And notice what takes you away from that. So that's his instruction. Like no 16 stages. That's complicated, Right? Just set yourself at ease. And understand that whatever quality of ease is accessible, Like whatever is easy for you. So it's just this really simple, Soft and relaxed ease. And then the important part, Like the wisdom part of it is to notice what takes you away from that ease. And then I guess the next question really is, Is it worth it? You know, Is it really worth losing whatever ease you have? It's through deepening the ease, Coming to more ease that we recognize more and more goodness that's here within us. Even though we can't necessarily stop certain mental habits or tendencies. It's a powerful movement to make an inner choice. And kind of an inner turning, Saying that like, I'm no longer standing behind this. I no longer believe in this kind of behavior. And we can do that without hostility or feeling bad about ourselves. We can do that with ease, You know. Now I'm moving in a positive direction for myself. And that experience, That's one of the greatest gifts of this practice. It's a deep self care. So no matter where you are on these 16 steps that we've been exploring since January, Here it is almost May. No matter where you are, Each step is good in and of itself. It even says in the ancient commentaries, It says that each step of the 16 can be complete in and of itself. Each step contains within it the path to all of the 16. So if you stated the first step of breathing in long, Knowing your breathing in long, Then the other 15 will follow as you settle and get concentrated on just that one. It doesn't matter which stage you're at, You know. That's the right place. That's a good place. This is your step now. This is your movement, Your ability. And the discourses continue with after being well established in the 16 steps. It describes a wider unfolding that happens while we're doing these. In particular, The wider unfolding is the four foundations of mindfulness. They're fulfilled through mindfulness of breathing and how mindfulness of breathing leads to what are known as the seven factors of awakening. So in this way, The description of practice, It's called onward leading. The nature of the Dharma is onward leading. And a simple way to understand this is that most people spend their days preoccupied. Maybe there's tension and attachment, Some wanting, The mind is racing or spinning. There's fear and anger, Resentment. There's all kinds of ways in which we get caught. And if we begin to relax that preoccupation, The entanglement with everything, It isn't that nothing happens. It's more like things start to unwind. Like a tight knot is unwinding. And a fading, A fading away of attachment starts to happen. And that fading away and dissolving, It begins to change like the form begins to change, Which is onward moving. And as we change, Things open up within us. Qualities and capacities that were repressed, Maybe by our fear or our preoccupation, They have a chance to show themselves. So a frequent metaphor and a metaphor I really appreciate is of a river or of a stream that comes down from the mountains. And if it rains enough on a mountaintop, The rain it starts to the raindrops start to flow down the side of the mountain. And then they kind of join together and form these little streamlets that become streams. And then the streams become rivers. And the rivers become bigger until they finally come down to the plains and become wide and big and silent like big rivers flowing along into the ocean. And the water it has a natural flow, You know, The flow of gravity. So this metaphor is used for getting into the stream into the flow of the Dharma, Which is what we're doing here. And it will carry us along. And as we go into the Dharma, These qualities inside us, You know, It might start as a streamlet. But they become bigger and stronger and slower and more silent. And the expression of silence is the silence that happens within when we're no longer caught in our preoccupation of me, Myself and mine. It doesn't mean that we're physically silent. It means a silencing of the extra agitation, The spilling over in the world in a kind of noisy way. So entering the stream is one of the metaphors for this flow that we're in this flow down the river. And some people experience this stream entry, This first experience of real freedom. And it changes a person entering this stream. It can. So I'll stop here today and we'll conclude, Kind of wrap the whole package of the 16 steps up on Thursday. But I'll take some questions now. Thank you so much for your practice this morning.