Posted By Mahabodhi on Feb 18, 2024 | 0 comments

Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book…

© Mahabodhi Burton

2 minute read

This excerpt is from the chapter ‘Buddhist Practice’ and it explores the mindfulness of breathing meditation practice. In this twelve minute meditation, I introduce the idea of focusing on the detail in the breath: as only way of really knowing that we are being aware; and to give ourselves a break from our day-to-day concerns. It follows on from ‘Mindfulness of Breathing.’

 VIDEO LEAD THROUGH

Following the details of the breath

In ‘digging into’ and trying to understand the principle behind the Mindfulness of Breathing myself, I came across another way of doing the practice, and like all methods it has benefits and drawbacks.

One thing that I noticed with people doing the four-stage practice was that I thought it was far too easy to sit say for twenty minutes going through the stages in a way where one was vaguely aware of the breath as ‘an overall thing’ while missing the specifics of the experience, and at the end of the meditation one’s mind was not that sharper than when one began. Some benefits would be gained, for instance one would probably become more ‘collected’ around the breath—the contents of one’s psyche more integrated, as well as calmed in general, but one’s mind would not necessarily be that much more brighter and alert than it was before, and brightness and alertness are qualities contributing to dhyana and to Awakening in general.

While practising the Mindfulness of Breathing in this way can be effective, there is a danger that our awareness can lack specificity, and hence sharpness. The purpose of the Mindfulness of Breathing is to develop mindfulness and awareness. In a real sense the object of the meditation is not the breath but awareness itself. We need to know whether we know what is happening with the breath (‘knowing whether we know’ is called ‘Reflexive Self-Consciousness’). If we can say in any moment that we are experiencing particular sensations, then we know that (in that moment) we are being aware. If there is any doubt, and we cannot say we know, therefore we are unaware.

The Sutta’s original instructions ask the monk to ‘know whether the breath is long or short.’ This indicates watching out for the details of the breath. If we are only generally aware that we are breathing, our awareness may be of an idea of the breath, rather than the breath itself. But if we know what the details of the breath are, we know we are present to our experience.

A brief meditation following the details of the breath

Having established your meditation posture, become aware of how you are feeling. When you feel ready, begin to look for an aspect of your experience in relation to the sensation or movement of the breath. Notice the detail of your experience. What is happening in this moment? And the next? And the next? Can you say whether you know what that detail is?

Be specific, not vague. Keep looking for the detail in the breath. Don’t worry if your mind wanders to something else. If it does simply ‘pick up’ the next bit

of detail in the breath that you can notice and try to know what that is. Your mind will wander off, but just try to keep the percentage of time that you know what is happening in the details of the breath as high as possible. Periodically check that you are still allowing your body to support your mind and emotions, rather than the other way around.

Set a timer for ten minutes. When the time is up, gently bringing the meditation to a close.

A second principle behind focusing on the detail of the breath is that we have to let go of our obsessions, at least for the period of the meditation. If we imagine holding one finger of each hand in front of us, at different distances from our eye; it is impossible to focus on both fingers at the same time! In this way we cannot simultaneously focus on both the details of our breath and the details of our everyday life, including our obsessions.

Practising the Mindfulness of Breathing in this way we have to let go of our habitual preoccupations, and instead become more aware of everyday life in a general ‘soft-focus’ sort of way; ‘zooming out ‘rather than ‘zeroing in’ helps us gain perspective on our lives.

The chapter goes on to explore day-to-day mindfulness.