In recent years I have become more and more aware that the method I use instinctively in teaching is quite inefficient for the progress of many beginning and intermediate students. I set off the teachings like rockets, hoping that the spectacular display in a night sky will be effective in and of itself and will change curiosity into creative enthusiasm.
Then I shoot off another rocket.
Then months, even years, later in evaluating why some students fail to capture for themselves the splendour presented I find that they have not gathered the basic principles involved.
So I will try here to be more thorough and complete.
Understanding meditation, despite what the advertisements of meditation may tell you, is not at all easy. It is true that some persons capture intuitively what is presented and pass ahead (here is where you must not nod, believing yourself to be one of them).
So I shall begin here once more with a Mindfulness of Breathing.
All meditation, whether you are a Dervish or a Hotentot, a Bushman or a Dharma follower, begins with Mindfulness of Breathing.
Try to see beyond the apparent academic words presented and grasp the fundamental idea beyond those words, remembering that this Mindfulness is foremost in Buddha Dharma.
Buddha himself praised it as "the Brahma-Vihara", the Divine Abode or as the "Ariya-vihara", the Noble Abode. It is this state that Buddha attained in his early meditations beneath the Rose Apple Tree on his father's farm. It was not his own discovery, for it had been used for centuries by his ancestors; but much later in his life, after other attempts to capture the Truth of a Natural and Pure Life proved inadequate, he returned with this as a base, under the Bodhi Tree, reaching the Awakening attainment, the higher state that his body/mind sought.
This Mindfulness or Meditation upon breathing (Anapanasati Samadhi) comprises the base for both Samadhi and Vipassana methods and is the foundation platform for all other advanced meditations, including our own Chan and Dao paths.
Now when we look at that "mind set" called Meditation upon Breathing, we lose really the whole sense of the meditation, for "Ana" can be said to represent the inhalation and "Pana" the exhalation of breath. Furthermore, "Sati" means Mindfulness and "Samadhi" means Concentration.
So the better description of this discourse, although it is clumsy to the modern mind, is:
"CONCENTRATION INDUCED BY MINDFULNESS WHICH APPREHENDS IN AND OUT BREATHING."
This, of course, supports the process of physical Life Survival which is JIVITINDRYA.
Its importance is reflected in the number of times it is mentioned in Sacred Texts and those really interested in touching the original texts should examine the meditation in tenth place among the Sanna Meditations; in which it is mentioned among the ten important Perceptions, which are in this sutra listed as (read each with clear understanding; one can then see its relevance):