Anapanasati And The Eight Fold Path

This recording begins with a talk relating Anapanasati meditation practice to the Eight Fold Path in Buddhism, and how this style of meditation helps us to cultivate mindfulness and concentration, two important parts of the Eight Fold Path itself.

This is followed by a guided meditation on contemplation of the body and feelings.

Transcript

I'd like to talk a little bit this afternoon about the relationship between the Anapanasati sutra and the Buddha's teaching of the Eightfold Path.

And to do that it might be helpful to give a little bit of information about the Buddha and how he came to first give this teaching.

You know,

Whether the historic Buddha,

Gautama,

Was the son of a wealthy merchant or a prince in a royal family is a little bit up for grabs.

But we do know that he was an actual person and we do know that he left a wealthy,

Very comfortable setting in order to seek out a spiritual path.

This was about 2600 years ago in northern India.

And at the time there were a great number of spiritual paths being explored,

A great number of spiritual teachers who had followers.

Some of these people were practicing very austere practices,

The idea of denying the body its basic needs in order to allow the spirit to come forth and to find liberation.

You know,

Really living in very rough ways in the wild,

Eating very little food.

And the historic Buddha,

Gautama,

He followed practices such as this for about six years and finally found himself at a state near death and was lying near a riverside and was found by a young girl who gave him milk and rice and nursed him back to health.

And he decided then that this kind of aesthetic practice was really not the way.

And as he regained his health,

He made friends with some of the village children and began to speak with them and found a comfortable place in the forest there and decided at one point that he would sit beneath the Bodhi tree and not get up until he had achieved enlightenment,

Which as the story goes he did.

And so his companions on the aesthetic path,

However,

Wondered what it is that had happened to him and came to look for him.

And they found him and they saw that he was dressed in clean robes and he had bathed and he had been eating and being with the children of the village.

And they looked at him and they said,

Gautama,

You've abandoned the path halfway.

And Gautama said,

No,

No,

I've discovered the way and let me tell you about it.

There's a book I enjoy called Old Path White Clouds from Thich Nhat Hanh.

And it's a biography of the Buddha.

And in there he describes what it is that the Buddha said to his friends in this first teaching of Buddha Dharma,

In this first turning of the Dharma wheel.

He said,

There are two extremes that a person on the path should avoid.

One is to plunge oneself into sensual pleasures and the other is to practice austerities which deprive the body of its needs.

Both of these extremes lead to failure.

The path I have discovered is the middle way,

Which avoids both extremes and has the capacity to lead one to understanding,

Liberation and peace.

It is the Noble Eightfold Path of Right Understanding,

Right Thought,

Right Speech,

Right Action,

Right Livelihood,

Right Effort,

Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.

And why do I call this path the right path?

I call it the right path because it does not avoid or deny suffering,

But allows for a direct confrontation with suffering as the means to overcome it.

I'm going to assume that most everybody here has some familiarity with the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.

They are a part,

They really form the basis of the Buddha's earliest teachings.

The Four Noble Truths that there is the existence of suffering or dis-ease in our lives.

The second truth that suffering has reasons that we cause for ourselves,

Our clinging and our aversions.

The third truth that there's a way out of suffering that it can cease and the Eightfold Path being the fourth truth.

Right Understanding or View,

Right Thought,

Right Speech,

Right Action,

Right Livelihood,

Right Effort,

Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.

Now,

It's not really my intention here to give a talk about the Eightfold Path itself.

I mean,

There are any number of books on the subject and,

You know,

Our Recovery Dharma book not being the least.

It has quite a good explanation of the Eightfold Path and how it applies directly into our work in recovery.

But another book that I do like on the Eightfold Path is called Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness by Bonté Gunar Tanna.

You can find it on Amazon.

And I love these traditions,

The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.

Because,

You know,

They focus on pulling us out of the emotional and spiritual mire that we think ourselves up into,

You know,

And then they pull us into a better place,

A more awakened place over time.

And they're strong and they're helpful practices.

Using mindfulness as a tool,

The elements of the Eightfold Path are like a teaching of investigation.

Some of you have heard me say that before.

They're a structure of thinking through which we can examine the ways in which we live our lives.

And that's important.

It's an important part,

Really,

Of how we come to understand our own role in suffering,

The harm and unhappiness that we create for ourselves and for others.

We gain insight through mindful observation and the concentration that meditation can bring.

And we develop a practice through which we apply insights to our interactions,

Our experiences with the world around us,

And gradually we lessen our suffering.

But there are a couple of things that I do want to talk about the full path,

The Eightfold Path,

That I want to kind of get at this afternoon.

The first has to do particularly with the name of the path itself,

The Eightfold Path.

And it's important to notice that the name is not the Eight Step Path.

You know,

These things are not sequential.

They're not something that we have to do in order.

Instead,

We can see each part of the path as a broad,

Almost kind of archetypal representation of the living out of awakened life.

Or,

You know,

For most of us,

And this is okay,

The living of an awakening life.

I certainly don't claim to be awakened,

But I'm working on it.

I can claim to be working on an awakening life.

Each part of the Eightfold Path,

Each fold,

You can call them,

Offers guidance for living in ways that are ethically upright,

Rooted in wisdom,

And manifested through actions that nurture our relationship with others,

With our community,

And with our sangha.

Taken as a whole,

It's a path that we walk.

But in different moments of our lives,

You know,

When our path twists and turns,

We learn from the different folds or parts of the path as our hearts and our minds have need.

You know,

What does it mean to practice wise speech?

How do we know when our speech has hurt someone?

And what do we do about it?

What really is wise action?

What are the effects of our actions?

How do we see them?

How do we change the actions which are unskillful?

How do we cultivate the ones that are wholesome?

The Eightfold Path is the path of living in awareness.

And the ideals of each fold in the path,

Their truth and their application in our lives,

They come clear to us over time and with practice.

But still,

There are two parts of the path that are key in the whole thing,

That are key in the revelation of the other six and the application of those other six to our lives.

Reading again just a paragraph from this book,

Old Path,

White Cloud,

The Buddha spoke to his friends,

Mindfulness is the foundation of the Noble Eightfold Path.

By practicing mindfulness,

You can develop concentration,

Which enables you to attain understanding.

Thanks to right concentration,

You realize right awareness,

Right thought,

Right speech,

Action,

Livelihood and effort.

The understanding which develops can liberate you from every shackle of suffering and give birth to true peace and joy.

Mindfulness and concentration,

He says,

These are the keys to understanding.

These are the tools that we use in our process of self investigation.

We practice mindful observation of our thoughts and our emotions,

Our reactive patterns in different situations.

And we work to not attach to these things,

To not become ensnared in thoughts,

To not become ensnared in harmful speech and actions which cause harm to ourselves and to others.

There are two sutras or teachings where the Buddha specifically addressed meditation and the cultivation of mindfulness.

One is the Satipatthana Sutra,

Or you might have heard it referred to as the four foundations of mindfulness.

And the other is the Anapanasati Sutra that we focus on in this group.

Now these two sutras are pretty closely related and in the end they both offer strategies for developing mindfulness,

For deepening the practice of mindfulness.

The specific difference is that between the two,

The Satipatthana Sutra leads the meditator through a number of specifically themed meditations.

Whereas the Anapanasati Sutra,

Or the Sutra on the full awareness of breathing,

Is rooted in mindfulness of the breath as we contemplate the body,

Feelings,

Mind,

Objects of mind.

It's primarily a breath practice which leads us through increasing levels of non-attachment and release so that we can see things more clearly.

So what we practice here,

Anapanasati,

A style of meditation based on awareness of the breath,

It's not simply practice in isolation from other aspects of Buddhism.

It's a strong practice,

As I said,

In the cultivation of mindfulness which leads to deeper levels of concentration.

The practice of Anapanasati is a method of developing mindfulness and concentration and these are the seventh and eighth fold of the eightfold path.

The ones that the Buddha identified as being at the root of being able to practice the other six.

So our meditation brings clarity which we then need to bring to our lives in relation to the other parts of the path.

Let's go ahead and do a guided meditation.

Find whatever meditation posture feels right for you.

The key of course is that you allow your breath to flow freely.

So if you're sitting,

You don't want to slouch in your chair,

Sit up straight against the back of the chair,

Or if you've got the practice of it,

Move away from the back of the chair and let your body sit straight and let your weight fall down into your sit bones.

If you're lying down,

Lie on your back.

I recommend putting a pillow under your knees,

Let your hands lie at your side or up on your body but not on your chest,

Not on your belly itself.

You don't want to impede your breath.

Your eyes can be open.

They can be partially closed.

What I'd like you to do is just take a couple of good deep breaths.

We're going to work on contemplations of the body and contemplations of the feelings.

We continue to do these two these week in order to deepen those practices before we get into the second two parts of the sutra,

The contemplation of the mind and objects of mind.

The words of the Buddha.

I heard these words of the Buddha one time when he was staying in savatthi.

The senior practitioners in the community were instructing those who were new to the practice.

Some instructing 10 some 20 some 30.

And in this way those new to the practice gradually made great progress.

That night,

The moon was full.

The Buddha,

The awakened one was sitting in the open air,

And his disciples were gathered around him.

After looking over the assembly he began to speak.

Friends our community is pure and good.

Such a community is rare and any pilgrim who seeks it,

No matter how far she must travel will find it worthy.

Friends the full awareness of breathing,

If developed and practiced continuously will be rewarding and bring great advantage.

And what is the way to develop and practice continuously the full awareness of breathing?

It is like this.

The practitioner goes into the forest or to the foot of a tree or to any quiet place,

Sits stably holding his or her body straight and practices like this.

Breathing in.

I know I am breathing in.

Breathing out.

I know I am breathing out.

Let your mind rest on your body.

As your body rests on the cushion or chair the floor.

Be aware of sitting upright.

Rooted aligned strong in your posture.

Posture is an expression of commitment to the way.

Think about the space around you.

Seclude yourself in this space.

See the room you are in as a gift of safety.

A place which gives you the opportunity to practice this afternoon.

Be grateful.

And as we have for the body establish a seclusion in the mind.

Rest now from the day to day expectations,

Responsibilities,

Set those aside.

No need for them now.

Formulate an intention to practice here.

Now.

For your own growth.

And if our how your growth can benefit others.

Take a moment again to align your physical posture.

And then to align your mind your mental posture.

Upright.

Be connected with your intention to practice.

And as we realign ourselves when our physical posture weakens the posture of the mind needs to be aligned whenever our attention is lost.

Gently brought back to the breath.

Gently brought back to the practice.

Straightness of your body encourages straightness in your mind.

Be here.

Now.

This present moment is your life.

And dwelling in the present moment.

Make mindfulness predominant in your perception bring mindfulness to the foreground.

Consider how this feels.

Where this resides.

In your mind.

In your body.

Perhaps both.

Bring your attention to the space right in front of your body.

From your head to your belly a space where mind and body exist as one.

Let your mindfulness.

Manifest let it billow in place.

You're held there by your mind at one end by your hands laying loosely in your lap at the other.

With mindfulness as you would a close friend.

Gently.

Experience your mind and body is one.

Meeting yourself where you are.

Experiencing the experience that's being experienced.

Allowing yourself to be open.

Spacious.

Be Joseph.

And now with mindfulness in the foreground,

Become aware of your breathing.

Your exhalations.

Inhalations Just the breath.

In and out.

Your breath does not need to be long,

It doesn't need to be short.

Doesn't need to be calm.

Doesn't need to be anything except your own.

Your breath.

Your closest friend.

Just a sense of inquiry,

Breathe in a breath and note its quality.

An opportunity to explore with attention.

Breathing the breath supports the mind and mindful observation.

Breathing.

This process of observing the length of your breath,

Long or short,

Makes it easy to see when your mind is about to wander and to bring it back to the comfort of the breath.

Not forcefully,

But gently.

And there can be contentment in just this.

Being with the breath in a state of mindfulness.

See if you can find this.

See if you can allow it to be.

Just the easy and gentle contentment of breathing in the moment.

Chogya.

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When you feel ready,

With a degree of stability in the breath,

Move on to an awareness of the whole body.

Feel the linkage of your breath and your body,

Not in a particular place,

But in your body as a whole,

At one with the breath.

Let the object of your mindful observation shift quietly to the body.

Keeping an awareness of the breath,

But in the background now.

Still mindful of the inhalations,

The exhalations,

But no longer focused on the quality of the breath,

But rather just that the breath is.

The breath now is a background to awareness of the whole body.

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And in our awareness of the body,

There naturally comes a calming of the body.

The calming of its activity,

Relaxation of the muscles.

A deep sense of relaxation.

Breath is calm.

Body is calm.

Settled.

Peaceful.

Calming bodily activity.

Finding tranquility in the body.

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Such a precious thing.

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Sometimes when practicing this meditation,

Joy may wash over you like a wave.

Other times it may be subtle.

Be open to the experience of joy.

Almost as a birthright.

And as a cultivation of this practice up to now.

Calm.

Content.

Joyful in the moment.

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Not chasing them,

Not pushing them away,

Just letting them be.

Arising,

Passing,

Not a problem,

Just aware that they're there.

Just passing clouds across the light of your awareness.

Just passing clouds across the light of your awareness.

Non-attachment.

Non-attachment.

Letting go the need to become involved in the content of your thoughts.

Just let them be.

If you find yourself swirled in the content of a thought,

Just know it.

Come back to the breath.

Come back to your body.

Calm,

Content.

Thoughts arise.

Thoughts pass.

No problem.

No problem.

In time,

As we practice with observing our mental activities,

Without attachment,

Without aversion,

We'll find that they begin to calm themselves,

Gradually becoming quieter,

Perhaps fewer in number.

Gentle and easy.

Non-attachment to thought.

Content in the breath.

Non-attachment.

Non-attachment.

Non-attachment.

Take a deep breath.

Come back to where we are.

If you could turn your cameras on,

I'd appreciate it.

It helps me to engage with you more fully.

What we just practiced are the first two sets of instructions in the Anapanasati Sutra.

There are four sets of four instructions.

The first four having to do with contemplations of body,

The second having to do with contemplations of feelings.

There is a similarity in the structure of these as we did body contemplations.

We brought our awareness to specific things,

The breath,

To the whole body.

And then we drew back from that to calming the body.

Part of this process is about successive stages of non-attachment.

Bringing mindfulness to something and then bringing mindfulness of that into the background and bringing our mindfulness to another thing.

A really important part of this practice is the sense of contentment.

That we can find in simple breath awareness and simple body awareness.

And it leads that contentment and some of you heard me say this before it leads very naturally into that second stage,

That second set of instructions on the feelings.

It can lead right into joy.

It can lead into a strong sense of contentment and happiness.

And that's a good place to land.

When we start to contemplate feelings.

The Sutra gives us a place to land.

But we let it go.

We back away from it.

We begin to just observe our mind,

Observe our mental activities,

See them,

Not attached to them.

And then to calm them.

Now that in itself,

Just like calming the body,

Being able to practice with knowing that thoughts are there but not following them.

That itself is also,

It's a mental calm and that's a gift we can give to ourselves.

But it also leads into the third set of practices,

Which we're about to get into probably starting next week,

Which is contemplation of the mind.

Being able to see the raw nature of the mind.

Being able to see what the mind is when thoughts are not racing.

Or if they are with just letting them come and go.

Not being involved in their content.

If we really are going to bring attention and mindfulness to the steps to the eightfold path.

We have to have some clarity of mind to do that.

And that's where this is heading.

So it's a lot later than I thought it was,

So we won't do a second period of meditation,

But I would like to go ahead,

6.

20.

I would like to go ahead and open this up to conversation,

Observations about the practice that we've just done or questions about it or eightfold path or Buddhism in general.

Hey there,

I'm Andrew.

Hi Andrew.

I do enjoy doing this,

But I run into the problem every time I get so relaxed I fall asleep.

And that's my suggestion on how not to fall asleep.

Well,

One is I'd cut yourself some slack.

It's a busy life.

It's a worrisome life.

And you know,

You are relaxing yourself and sleep happens for sure.

Drowsiness happens.

Don't beat yourself up about it,

You know,

I think that the more you practice.

The more your mind comes to understand what it is that you're doing and that you're not trying to put yourself to sleep that you really are trying to build contemplation.

You really are trying to work on a cultivation of mindfulness.

Posture can have a lot to do with that.

Also,

Though,

You know,

If you're sitting in a chair and you're just sort of,

You know,

Okay,

I'm good.

I'm relaxing back in this chair.

It's easier to fall asleep.

You know,

When I sit,

I'm sitting on a bench now and I'm sitting without back support.

I'm not erect.

I'm not rigid,

But I am erect.

I'm not rigid sort of letting my weight settle down through my spine into my hips.

So I have to keep a sort of physical,

Physical alertness to maintain that,

You know.

And the other thing is thinking about what it is that you do with your eyes.

Some people close their eyes in meditation.

Some people just keep them sort of,

You know,

Cast down at about a 40 degree angle,

Something like that.

My personal experiences that when I have my eyes closed,

I tend to drift a little more easily.

You know,

If I have my eyes open,

Then I'm less likely to do that.

The difficulty with it is if you have your eyes open,

You might start to look at different things and be distracted by that.

So with eyes open,

A relaxation of the field of vision and not seeing here,

But seeing gently and slightly out of focus,

Just the breath of what's in front of you.

But eyes down,

Too.

So really what you're seeing is the floor.

If that makes sense,

But not focusing on one part of the floor that will not hold in the wood or whatever it is,

But let your eyes be relaxed and take in that whole field of vision at once,

Sort of like being with the body as a whole.

Similar to that.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

Posture is important.

Yeah.

You're welcome.

OK.

Well,

I want to encourage you to practice meditation every day if you can.

The length of time is less important than settling in and doing it.

OK.

And if this style of meditation makes sense for you,

I encourage you to do it.

And this is what we'll be doing every week here.

We're going to move next week into contemplations of the mind and move forward from there.

All right.

There are no more questions or any comments.

I guess we'll go ahead and check out.

Thank you all for coming.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Good.

See you next week.

Bye bye.

Reviews

Really good series of teachings and practice. It is exactly what I was looking for to further engage in my own practice.

Wonderful. Great lesson and meditation.

You brought the 8 fold path into 3-D, showing us the middle path through aversions and attachments. Thank you!

Thank you!
Old Path White Cloud is a fine book. I recently read it again, seeing different aspects this time around.

Excellent! Very nicely guided, enjoyed the brief talks at the beginning and end. I really sink deep and appreciated the quiet pauses to sink even deeper. Thank you so much. ☮️💖🙏