In depth discussion on breath meditation

[Gem]

On the face of it it is simple: feel your breathing, and when you notice the mind wandered away, return attention to breath.

People tend to add things like controlled breath or counting breath, but there are good reasons not to employ the volition in these ways. Basically, breath meditation is based on 'seeing it as it is', and not 'making it as you want it to be'.

These are my opening statements. I hope to have a constructive discussion that benefits SF members.

[slowsnake]

Hello,
Lord Buddha sitting under the boddhi tree practiced this meditation, there are lots of different spellings of samartha, I actually practice it,but I use a blank/black screen,its meditation on a "point",but not necessarily breath!

You need a point,a focus point so breathing is perfect as you can do it anywhere,I have a thread here on SF that follows my daily meditation,because I my ill health I cannot do it everyday,but I do it most days.

The reason/purpose is to calm/relax my mind,I am not meditating to elevate my consciousness, the last thing I need is anymore higher levels of thought,this meditation is pure meditation as I call it,purely to relax my very over excited mind/thoughts and you could I suppose call it "mindfulness",not a word I use often but fits in here.

Good luck!

KRB

[In Flux]

I (try to) follow Thanissaro Bikkhu's advice on this. I agree it's about "seeing it as it is". Usually, what happens is that you can't "see it as it is" because the mind gets triggered by some thought or stimulus, and gets lost into a fantasy. You need to get the mind to stay alert and concentrated on just observing "things as they are", and not drifting off. One way to achieve that is to focus the mind on the breath (because the breath is a part of 'things as they are'), and keep it there by making the breathing itself pleasant. So if -
for example - deep breathing feels more pleasant, you breathe more deeply.
He talks a lot about the breath energy, because this feeling of energy (that is connected to the breath) tends to be more pleasant and rewarding than just the feeling of breathing itself. Lately, I have found that once there is some pleasant breath energy in the body, it tends to linger. This makes it possible to "feed off the breath energy" during the meditation, as Thanissaro Bikkhu puts it. I'm still only beginning to explore this, but I recommend you to listen to his talks on this topic (I cannot really do his message justice in a short post).

[slowsnake]

Hello,
Have not heard of Thanissaro Bikku but I like your post and will find out about him,I try not to add any new folk/ideals to my already bulging mental repertoire, I already have everything I need!

KRB

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Gem

On the face of it it is simple: feel your breathing, and when you notice the mind wandered away, return attention to breath.

People tend to add things like controlled breath or counting breath, but there are good reasons not to employ the volition in these ways. Basically, breath meditation is based on 'seeing it as it is', and not 'making it as you want it to be'.

These are my opening statements. I hope to have a constructive discussion that benefits SF members.

Hi Gem.

It is such a simple technique, yet the most profound. As humans we do create very complex ways of understanding the practice and ourselves, yet the breath is that point, that can lead us to become more deeply focused, aware and open to ourselves as a greater more expanded understanding and consequently carry this awareness as our lead into the world and manage ourselves in this way in it.

For me this method is both a sitting method and a way to live my life, practice. Just by making that conscious effort to focus inwardly when all the world is happening around me, moving and being itself, my breath is that place I can settle and pause, stay present in myself and become more clear to know how to move and respond to what is there with more clarity and conscious awareness of the whole movement.

I know in yoga and sometimes meditation we do certain breathing practices to slow us down and become more mindful of the breath in this way. When people follow a pattern it can break patterns in their own body as I have learned for me. The patterned or forced breathing practice can build focus and move things in ways we might be still controlling through our normal breath, so it sometimes can trigger a new response to clear things out of the way. For me personally I prefer just the natural focus on my breath, as I find it moves me to a deeper space of emptiness and clarity most naturally, but then I am not in the volition nowdays, so in some ways that shows me I am no longer in need to be in any "forced" practice.

For me the love of being and doing, engaging and flowing all comes back to this method of simple breath awareness. And naturally when you understand this in yourself you naturally can model this space to others more naturally as yourself.


I do agree with you. The simplicity of coming back to our own natural breath, when informed and aware of the process that may come into being through this, can be more effective and less intrusive and in the process we learn how it feels to "breath" as our own life giving force from within and definitely this kind of of our own breath can bring that "seeing things as they are" more aligned to you as you are.

Our breath is the all giving life force, the creation of us into being from that very first breath/aware of itself as life, holds the potential of itself in this way.

Simple in breath, profound as a life more aware of itself.

[Gem]

It is of the greatest simplicity as a technique: feel yourself breathing, mind wanders, return to feeling breathing. Human beings, however, are complicated, and often feel compelled to add something extra such as imagining energy, counting the breaths etc. The meditation is taking things away rather than adding anything, for the breath is there and all one does is notice it, as it already is.

I have read and heard much on the subject of this meditation, but little of that discourse relates to my own practice. In my own practice I have identified all unnecessary 'additions' such as imaginings, breath control, and mental verbalisations such as counting, and discarded it all, remaining only with the fact, this is the sensation of it as it is.

The mind, in its habitual state, wants 'you' to give it something to do, because the egoic-self is perpetuated by volition, and by volition I mean creating or producing mental forms, as opposed to merely paying attention to what already is. When one simply watches, and only watches, their own propensity to manufacture unnecessary thought is revealed.

If people do not practice, then they won't understand what I say, or if people are trying to think of 'higher levels' or 'special energies' they won't be attuned to this sensation just as it is. If the real lived experience is the very mundane and common daily sensation of one's breath, that's all it is. Nothing special, just this.

In spiritualism it seems to be that people are looking for something special, and the discourse, such as that in the Buddhist section, is always reaching for something ultimate, but my personal preference is to talk to people in their immediate presence with this experience just as it is, for this makes our attention present, not reaching for higher of future states, but consciously aware of 'this' as it is. The real living truth of this moment.

It might be experienced as pleasant, it might be experienced as unpleasant, but aside from personal preferences, the attention may reveal the immediacy of life as it is now, and one can easily notice what their breath feels like - without expecting anything special - because it is indeed a most common and mundane experience.

I don't have anything special, so I can't fulfill such desires people may have. I'm only saying, if you can feel yourself breathing, that's all it is: feel yourself breathing.

From there, we might notice obstacles to so doing, which we refer to as 'distraction'... one may notice the distractions of the mind, its frustrations and impatience, its desires and dislikes, and all its other erratic patterns, habits, and other disturbances which amount to personal disquiet.

One might ask, why is this OP lending toward such unpleasant things, such disruptive states of the mind - is not meditation about peace and quietude? I answer by saying, meditation is about the truth of ones life as it really is - it is 'knowingness' of yourself as you really are - because the true state of consciousness is you, just as you are now.

Here we come to 'what is true'. This meditation is not about pleasure and displeasure associated with special and mundane experiences, for the truth doesn't care what anyone wants. One can not invent it, but rather, can only discover it and face it, just as this breath feels a particular way right now, and no one made it just so.

[In Flux]

If you *only* focus on the breath, and heavy boredom comes up, then how do you handle that? I suppose will power would be the only way (or ending the meditation). Isn't this application of will power just as distracting as having an awareness of breath energy? And let say that applying will power was successful, and after a good amount of more sitting the boredom fades. Now, a feeling of being content will come up: a relief that you no longer have to fight with the boredom. Are you able to just observe this contentment, without interacting with it to make it even more pleasant and deep? (and should you not interact?)

I dare say that some degree of fabrication is always present in meditation. Of course if total non-interference gives good results then I am not arguing against that, but if you are going to fabricate, better to do it consciously and skillfully.

Best regards,
Martin

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by In Flux

If you *only* focus on the breath, and heavy boredom comes up, then how do you handle that? I suppose will power would be the only way (or ending the meditation). Isn't this application of will power just as distracting as having an awareness of breath energy? And let say that applying will power was successful, and after a good amount of more sitting the boredom fades. Now, a feeling of being content will come up: a relief that you no longer have to fight with the boredom. Are you able to just observe this contentment, without interacting with it to make it even more pleasant and deep? (and should you not interact?)

Gem is probably the one your asking, but when I reflected on what your asking here I just wanted to make mention of my own interest. If your giving attention to your breath why would you be going into the meditation with ideas of what might occur with labelling as your showing.

Feelings and sensations arising can be noticed, but you can continue to move back to the breath while all these things are happening.The breath is where your attention lays not in the "labelling/naming" of what is occurring, being noticed. If you don't label or use your mind to decide what just is occurring then, in my own experience your not attached to it, more allowing and letting things shift through you as they arise..

I am not sure applying will power is really becomes necessary, more a conscious shift back to the breath which eliminates the mind controlling what just is.. To me reading this is that your creating story before you even move into the practice, which, if your more open and aware without attaching in this way, would allow for the breath to be your support through any feelings or sensations as they arise. Moving back to the breath your attention becomes about the breath not your mind and a story that comes from the mind and memories. The story will keep you locked into what it is happening, unless your let it all go and go back to the breath and notice it instead..

I dare say that some degree of fabrication is always present in meditation. Of course if total non-interference gives good results then I am not arguing against that, but if you are going to fabricate, better to do it consciously and skillfully.

Best regards,
Martin

[Gem]

Originally Posted by In Flux

If you *only* focus on the breath, and heavy boredom comes up, then how do you handle that?

I recognise boredom - the mind has gone into adversity, impatience and agitation toward the lived experience, and this noticeably brings disquiet to my life.

I suppose will power would be the only way (or ending the meditation). Isn't this application of will power just as distracting as having an awareness of breath energy?

Indeed. Employing willpower (I call 'volition') is illusory, but it indicates craving reactions which are compelled by the adverse reactions of boredom. I know, this brings disquiet to my life.

And let say that applying will power was successful, and after a good amount of more sitting the boredom fades. Now, a feeling of being content will come up: a relief that you no longer have to fight with the boredom. Are you able to just observe this contentment, without interacting with it to make it even more pleasant and deep? (and should you not interact?)

Of course, in the absence of personal reactivity there is contentment. The meditation is consciously aware and calm, which is the relaxation, or cessation, of psychological reactivity. The cessation of action and reaction leaves the mind undistracted, while the spontaneous lived experience continues as it is.

I dare say that some degree of fabrication is always present in meditation. Of course if total non-interference gives good results then I am not arguing against that, but if you are going to fabricate, better to do it consciously and skillfully.

Best regards,
Martin

I suggest one should notice, be conscious of, the fabrications they produce (which will be produced out of conditioning and habit) but not produce them intentionally.

[In Flux]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

If your giving attention to your breath why would you be going into the meditation with ideas of what might occur with labelling as your showing. .

Well, you are already going into the meditation with an idea, which is: to focus on the breath. If you extend this to "focus on the breath and the energy in the body" then it can help you maintain your interest in the meditation. I believe that for many people, meditation become too dry if they just observe the breath without any intervention. This will vary from person to person. For some, just the observation of the breath is absolutely interesting. Quite likely, these people already have a deeper connection to the present moment. The sensation of "just being" is very satisfying for them. But if you don't sense this so deeply, then it becomes extremely difficult to maintain the concentration on the breath. Then, keeping "the breath and the energy" in mind can give enough of a push to be able to stay in the meditation. I believe this is also why some meditators use the technique of labelling (boredom/pain/thinking/feeling/etc) during the meditation: not because labelling in itself is necessary, but because it gives you enough of a handle to sit through some experiences that would otherwise compel you to get out of the pose.

Originally Posted by naturesflow

If you don't label or use your mind to decide what just is occurring then, in my own experience your not attached to it, more allowing and letting things shift through you as they arise..

That's probably true, if you are able to sustain the meditation long enough to see these things arising. I have not gone very deeply into meditation, but I think that using the breath energy has helped me to stay more alert during the meditation, and not fall asleep so easily.

Originally Posted by naturesflow

I am not sure applying will power is really becomes necessary, more a conscious shift back to the breath which eliminates the mind controlling what just is.

But to shift back to the breath and ignore the loud voice that says "this is so boring, please, let's do something more interesting", that takes will power :-).

Originally Posted by naturesflow

The story will keep you locked into what it is happening, unless your let it all go and go back to the breath and notice it instead.

I think noticing the breath energy is not necessarily the same as telling yourself a story. It's just a sensation (you could tell a story around it, but you don't have to).

Best regards,
Martin