Breath Mindfulness 1

The first tetrad (group of four) says:

1. When breathing a long or heavy breath, they are aware of it.

2. When breathing a small or fine breath, they are aware of it.

3. Breathing in and out, they train in fully experiencing the whole body.

4. Breathing in and out, they train in calming bodily processes.

The first half puts forth a very basic mindfulness exercise, just be aware and attentive of the quality of the breath while sitting still. The second half broadens the scope of the practice to the whole body and adds a call to “train” oneself in some way.

To begin, sit relaxed and as still as you can. Check your posture and make sure it is straight and comfortable. Set your eyes as you like, either open, closed or half-open. This will depend on the person’s preferences and their state of mind. If you are tired and sleepy, perhaps leave them open. If you are agitated, perhaps close them. Whatever helps to calm the mind for you is what is best.

Now make an effort to be mindful, make mindfulness your single priority right now, bring to the “front and center” of your mind. Tell yourself that this is the time to arouse your attention and let everything else be for now. Think about your intention and why you want to be mindful, why you want to meditate.

Make sure you breathe through the nose. Just let the breath come and go naturally, just notice where it is being felt, don’t try to control it or force it in any individual spot. The forest master Ajahn Chah said: “Simply observe it without trying to control or suppress it in any way. In other words, don’t attach to anything.”

Diaphragmatic breathing is considered the most natural, and relaxing way to breathe, so breathe expanding the abdomen first. Where to place the attention? The text does not specify, so for me this indicates that one is just aware of the general experience of breathing. No need to place the mind on an actual spot of the body. Some teach to focus on the rising of the belly, others focus on the nose or in the expansion of whole torso. Ajahn Chah taught that one can focus on the nose at the beginning of a breath, then move to chest for the middle of a breath and finally the abdomen at the end of a breath – and then in reverse for the out breath. Find whatever works for you.

Ten or so deep breaths at the beginning may help to energize oneself for the meditation and to bring the breath to the “forefront” of our awareness. So take some long and deep breaths as you inhale, pay attention to how the abdomen, and diaphragm expand and contract. You can count from 1 to 10 on the inhale and 10 to 1 on the exhale. A deep long in breath should take anywhere from 4 to 8 seconds, likewise for a slow exhale. Experiment with the length and texture of the breath, see what feels good and invigorating.

To start out, one can also use mental notes linked to the breath as a way to calm mental chatter. This can simply be “rising – falling”, or “In – out”. One can also use a mantra or meditation word like “Bud-dho”. Another technique is counting up to ten repeatedly with each out breath, in breath, or both, until it becomes natural and you don’t lose count. You can also include the pauses in the between the breaths instead of just the in and out breaths – “in – pause – out – pause” or “Bud-dho … Bud-dho”, “Om (in)-mani (pause)-padme (out)-hum (pause).”

The use of the counting method as a preliminary aid to mindfulness is taught in various Abhidharma texts of the Northern and Southern traditions.

Try to find a balance between effort and relaxation. The Vimuttimagga says: He should not try too strenuously nor too laxly. If he tries too laxly, he will fall into rigidity and torpor. If he tries too strenuously, he will become restless.

After a while, when the mind has settled a bit, you can move from noting or counting to following the in and out breath together without any inner verbalization, or you can skip the noting altogether and start here if you feel that these are not helpful.

Try to notice the beginning, the middle and the end of the breath. Do not miss a moment of it and attempt to be with the whole event. One can also focus one’s attention on noticing the pauses in between. A Chinese parallel to the Maharahulovada sutta states: At the time when there is breath, he is aware it is there; at a time when there is no breath, he is aware it is not there (Ekottarika Agama “EA” 17.1). This means every element of the breath is to be noticed, even the moments when one is not taking in or sending out.

In the beginning you might only notice just the in and out, later as mindfulness improves, you’ll notice more and more gradients of the breath in detail, the pause before, the initial moment when it starts, the drawing in, the pause in between, etc.

In a related method called “following” we notice the breathing sensations entering the nose, moving down the throat, and into our lungs, expanding our torso and diaphragm, pausing and then moving back out. We try to notice as closely as possible the movements of the whole physical breathing process without gaps. Evaluate and investigate the breathing processes, notice closely how mind and body respond to the settling of awareness on the breath.

Knowing that the breath is long or short refers to noticing its length, texture and other qualities, without judgement. Just sense it and watch how it changes. Become a connoisseur of the breath. Is it slow or fast, cool or warm, calm or harsh, smooth or coarse, pleasant or unpleasant? Where is it felt most vividly? What does it sound like, listen to it.

Study the breath like a naturalist. While the Pali suttas only mentions length, a Chinese parallel in the Ekottarika Agama mentions being mindful of the temperature of the breath. This indicates that this step is more about a general evaluation of various qualities of breath to arouse mindfulness.

This analytical element of the meditation is the quality known as “investigation of principles” (dhammavicaya). It avoids distraction by arousing interest in the object of meditation and also yields further insight into the meditation process. Keep in mind that patisamvedi is not intellectualizing though, it is more of a sensing or intuiting, so try not to get too discursive about the breath but to feel it out.

The Theravada Patisambhidamagga (henceforth: Patis.) notes another important quality to attend to here, called chanda, a positive desire, aspiration, interest or zeal. In this case it refers to an eagerness and wholesome desire to be with and investigate the meditation theme.

It is through this interest or affinity for the breath that our meditation matures. Chanda to be with the breath also leads to a sense of gladness once we’ve been with it for some time. Investigation can arouse some energy or vigor for the practice, this is the factor of viriya. You can also try to cultivate this by creating a sense of spiritual urgency and reminding yourself of your intention and the goal of your practice.

Imagine for example, how little time we have in our life to truly practice, or imagine yourself in the future as an accomplished meditator, and all of the joy and calm you’ll feel from having practiced so diligently now. With time, one does not need to think much to activate chanda.

Ideally the breath will become refined, shorter and calmer over time as you continue. You may also begin to notice that the breath is connected to the mind – an agitated mind means rapid breathing, and calming the breath also calms the mind. Observing the breath allows one to see the conditional connection between the mind and the body.

Distractions

If thoughts or sensations arise and distract you from the breath, simply come back without making a big deal out of it. You might also make a mental note of them (“thinking”, “intending”, “soreness”, “itching”, etc.) and go back to the breath. Don’t be discouraged, the mind’s nature is to wander, so just take it with humor and with patience.

When you bring the mind back you can also try to restate your intention for practicing and rejoice that you have caught your mind wandering and have brought it back to its proper place. Remind yourself that real happiness, a perfect freedom, is possible and is something which is in a sense already accessible and that you are training the mind to see this right now.

MN 20 also recommends meditating on the drawbacks or dangers (adinava) of letting yourself stay distracted with these thoughts. Where would all this distraction lead? Why is it unskillful? How do they lead to suffering?

You also want to cultivate a preventive attention that sees the mind wobbling before getting “caught” in a train of thought. A common simile is that of a monkey swinging from tree branch to tree branch. You want to keep the monkey on one branch and watch closely. You notice when the monkey is looking away from the branch and is starting to reach to grab another branch and you coax it to stay and look at its branch. The distracted mind is like this.

A method of dealing with wandering thoughts is the following, inspired by a similar method taught by Bhikkhu Vimalaramsi. It consists of these steps (“five R’s”): Release, Relax, Rejoice, Remind, and Return. To do this, when you catch the mind moving away, release the desire to go somewhere else, don’t follow it, and just let it pass. Now relax the mind and the body and rejoice in this feeling of having recognized and having released. Take a deep breath and smile even. Then remind yourself why you are meditating, what your intention is. Then return home, the meditation theme. Do this as needed. Over time, you should not need this method as a crutch and should just naturally learn to release and return.

The suttas state that there are cases of serious distractions when a different approach is needed:

When a seeker…remains thus focused on the body in & of itself, a fever based on the body [or feelings, or mind, etc] arises within his body, or there is sluggishness in his awareness, or his mind becomes scattered externally.

They should then direct their mind to any inspiring theme (nimitta). As their mind is directed to any inspiring theme, delight arises. In one who feels delight, rapture arises. In one whose mind is enraptured, the body grows calm. Their body being calm, they feel pleasure. As they feels pleasure, their mind grows unified. They reflect, ‘I have attained the aim to which my mind was directed. Let me withdraw [my mind from the inspiring theme]’. They withdraw & engages neither in directed thought nor in evaluation. They understand, ‘I am not thinking or evaluating. I am inwardly mindful & at ease.’ – SN 47.10

As this sutta shows, it is a common issue in meditation that the mind is not settling properly and instead experiences bodily excitation or tension, and mental tiredness or anxiety. A common cause for this is inappropriate attention (ayoniso manasikara).

When these issues arise and become difficult, we can bring to the mind a theme to contemplate that will gladden it and calm it, such as the good fruits of our practice, Nirvana – the final end of suffering, our own good deeds, the example of the Buddha or another teacher, etc. When the mind has settled, you can drop the theme. This is called “development by directing the mind”. If the mind settles on its own, then one can simply note that it has calmed down and been released from distractions, this is called “development by not-directing the mind.”

Sabbakaya

The following sections shift from “one knows” to “one trains” or “practices” (sikkhati), indicating that there is some increased effort involved in these steps. However, this should not be a forceful effort but a gentle guiding.

Also the term “patisamvedi” is now used, which I translate as “fully experiencing”, but could also mean “to know”, “to sense” or even “feel”. This kind of knowing is an intimate ‘getting in touch with’ in a whole and complete way (hence the prefix -sam). It is not intellectual analyzing, rather a more subtle form of ‘being-with’, a way of getting to know closely, a tender and intuitive sense of familiarity.

These latter elements of the first tetrad are training oneself to expand our awareness to ‘all bodies’ or the ‘whole body’ (sabbakaya), which include the totality of the breath and physical bodily phenomena. The following step also implies keeping a stable, relaxed bodily posture and calming any intentions to move from this posture. One also remains aware of the breathing process, but now one expands this awareness to the whole body and notices how the breathing processes affect all the body processes.

There is some controversy over this term since some take it to mean strictly just the “body of the breath” and not the whole physical body. This is because the APSS itself says that the breath is a “body among bodies” (i.e. a collection of phenomena). Let us look at some evidence which shows that this distinction is a pointless one from the point of view of meditative experience.

The parallels in the Chinese Agamas use various phrases including:

• Samyukta Agama “SA” 803 and SA 807 says “awareness of the entire body (覺知一切身; 一切身覺 )”
• SA 810 says “awareness of all bodily formations (一切身行覺知)”
• Ekottara Agama “EA” 3.8 says that one completely observes the body (具觀身體), fully observing and knowing it from the head down to the feet (從頭至足皆當觀知).

In and out breathing is closely related to the property of air. MN 62 says regarding the air property:

And what is the air element? The air element may be interior or exterior. And what is the interior air element? Anything that’s wind, windy, and organic that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This includes: winds that go up or down, winds in the belly or the bowels, winds that flow through the limbs, in-breaths and out-breaths, or anything else that’s air, airy, and organic that’s internal, pertaining to an individual.

This passage shows us that for ancient Buddhists, the air property was considered as being active throughout the physical body, even in the limbs. This is also seen in the Vedic sources. Therefore, even if sabbakaya is to be understood just as “body of the breath”, this could still include a broadening of our awareness to the whole physical body.

Furthermore the Sarvastivada and Sautrantika sources of the Northern Buddhist tradition interpreted this passage as referring to the breath as it moves through the whole physical body. The Mahavibhasasastra says that in this step one feels the whole body breathing in and out, and compares it to how air moves through the entire body of a lotus root. Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakosabhasya (4th-5th century) states:

The ascetic follows the air breathed in into the throat, the heart, the navel, the kidneys, the thigh, and so on to the two feet; the ascetic follows the air breathed out to a distance of a hand and a cubit. Likewise, the Dhyana Samadhi Sutra (Zuochan sanmei jing, Taishō 614) translated by Kumarajiva (4th century CE), teach this practice as one in which one:

Perceives the breath pervading the body and filling all pores, down to those on the toes, just like water soaking into sand...Just like the air that fills bellows, whether it is going out or coming in, the wind blowing in and out through the mouth and nose fills the body. One observes the whole body that the wind fills, like holes of a lotus root filled with water and a fishing net soaked in water…The mind sees the breath coming in and going out through all pores and the nine apertures of the body.

With all this in mind, it seems to me then that this practice is referring to all physical processes, including the breathing processes and all the physical processes of the human body which are ultimately connected and supported by the act of breathing. Hence one is to pay attention to “all-bodies” in a holistic sense. This makes sense if one understands that the ancient Indian view of the “breath” (pana/prana) is broader than the meaning of the English word “breath”, and includes activities and sensations felt throughout the whole body.

To practice this third step, begin by expanding the experience of the breath to all noticeable breathing sensations. Pay attention to as much of the breath as possible in every place that it is being felt – from nose to neck to chest to navel. Follow its trajectory fully and notice all the parts of the body that are engaged and affected by the breathing process. This will slowly lead you to experience your whole body. Open yourself up to sensing the entire body, just allow yourself to experience all the sensations. How is your body responding to the breathing? What is happening as you breathe? How does it move or change during the process?

I have found that it can be helpful to understand and look up images of the anatomical process of breathing and how the chest cavity, diaphragm and rib cage looks and works as it expands giving room for the lungs to be filled. Having a good and anatomically accurate mental image of this process can add a whole new dimension to mindfulness of breath and body.

One of the most common techniques used by meditation teachers is the “body scan” or “body sweep” and this can be helpful in this step. Beginning at some spot, slowly move your awareness through the body in sections, maintaining mindful awareness of each section for a suitable length of time, attending to the arising and passing of different sensations and then moving on.

This may be combined with noting practice by calmly naming each section in the mind, or you can just be quietly aware of each bodily section and the breathing sensations. When scanning, avoid getting stuck in one spot and losing your continuity of practice by getting bored with it and drifting off. Try having a predetermined number of breaths for each area of the body and make sure you keep your attention moving.

Try to pay careful attention to all the different elements of the area you’re attending to. You can also visualize the area in your mind.

To do this, begin by focusing your awareness on one spot and then let it grow from there, slowly and gradually adding more and more sections of the body until you have the whole body covered. Eventually your sensations of breathing and of your body will become one. I have found that good places to start are center of the torso, the face or the abdomen. You can also use the meditation phrase “whole body breathing” as you breathe until the attention has settled across the whole body.

Try experimenting with these instructions, you might for example want to start with whole body awareness first, or with focusing on one spot first, or you might want to vary how you scan the body or how you visualize the breath entering and leaving the body.

You might want to focus on only one aspect of these instructions during your meditation until you’ve gotten good at it and after some time you might move through the initial steps faster. See what works for you, there is no need to be strict following these instructions because they are merely guidelines for getting one to the goal.

Relaxing

The next step is “passadhi” applied to “kayasankhara”. In the Pali tradition, passadhi has connotations of relaxing and calming, in the Northern traditions, the Sanskrit word prasrabhi was used to refer more to a sense of pliancy or flexibility and in Chan/Zen, it is a certain lightness and ease. All of this points to a quality which is both relaxed and light which also means malleability and flexibility.

As noted by K.L. Dhammajoti, various parallel sources of the sixteen mode anapanasati use other terms as well. The Sariputrabhidharma and the Satyasiddhisastra says that one trains “eliminating” (除 *pratiprasrambhayan) the bodily activities. Meanwhile, the Mahasamghika Vinaya says that one breathes “relinquishing” (捨) the bodily activities. The Dharmatrata-dhyana-sutra has “gradually putting to rest (漸休息) the bodily activities.” All this points to a gradual calming, settling, dissolving and letting go of physical activity.

What is being calmed? We can differentiate several different interconnected elements:

• The breathing.
• Any bodily movement or activity.
• Tightness and tension present in the body.
• Our intention or volition to move/shift the body.
• Our intention or volition to control the breath.
• Mental processes (indirectly).

The Theravada Commentary says:

I shall breathe in and out, quieting, making smooth, making the activity of the breathing body tranquil and peaceful…when the body and the mind are under control then the body and the mind become placid, restful. When these are restful, the breathings proceed so fine that the bhikkhu doubts whether or not the breathings are going on…

What are the activities of the body? …Calming the body-activity by way of quieting the bodily activities of bending forwards, sidewards, all over, and backwards, and (by way of the quieting of) the moving, quivering, vibrating, and quaking of the body…

Kayasankharas refer to any bodily processes, especially those connected with breathing, and also to any physical activities related to stress or tightness and any subtle movements. Mental stress creates physical tension and vice versa, our breath is hurried, our muscles and stomach tighten and our sympathetic nervous system which regulates flight-or-flight activates. See if you can notice these processes going on in your body.

This step is necessary because calming the breath leads to a relaxed body and mind which are much more suitable and pliant for the work of meditation. Attending to and relaxing the breathing process engages the parasympathetic nervous system which calms the body and mind. The fact that this step is meant to calm both body and mind is explicitly stated in the Satyasiddhisastra which says that the gross breathing ceases because “there is peacefulness (安隱, ksema) in their citta [heart-mind].”

So initially in this practice, focus on calming, smoothing, lightening and softening your whole breathing process, which is also said to be the “conditioner” or “fabricator” of the body (hence kaya sankhara).

To be able to notice and study how the breath relates to and affects the body, we can begin to train by gently adjusting our breathing and being sensitive to changes in our body as we do. Try to guide the breath to become finer, calmer, smoother and lighter. Try to find a rhythm and texture that feels nice and peaceful. Notice if there is any straining or tightness the beginning, middle or end of the breathing process, then try to relax this. Try to let the end of each out-breath seamlessly meld into the next in breath.

You can repeat a word or phrase in your mind initially as you try this, such as “calming the breath” and so on.

Breathing should be a smooth circular rhythm not shifty huffs and puffs. The Buddha compared it to someone shaping pottery on a lathe. Think about that simile, the potter is touching and shaping each side of the pot and smoothing it out, making it even with each spin. Also he is becoming more and more focused at it as he goes, and yet making less and less effort.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu advises one to just pose the question in your mind “what kind of breathing would feel good?” and see how the body responds. Find the breath that feel comfortable and appreciate it, let yourself be happy that you are breathing peacefully right now. Just allow the sense of the breath to spread and expand on its own.

The Patis. says there are five faults of anapanasati: The mind that hunts the past, that loves the future, that is slack, over-exerted, or enticed, or repelled, is unconcentrated. Try to see if you are doing any of these activities and let them go or adjust your meditation accordingly.

Try just being clearly aware in the present while just resting your awareness on the breathing and body and keeping still. SN 54.7 states:

the samadhi of the mindfulness of breathing that is cultivated and increased with neither moving nor fidgeting of the body, with neither moving nor fidgeting of the mind.

Likewise, SA 806 depicts a monk, venerable Kapphina, as the exemplar anapanasati meditator. His practiced is described as “making his body straight and unmoving (正身不動)” and “not leaning and not moving (不傾不動).” He is praised by the Buddha for his practice.

The Vimuttimaga and the Patis. both note that this step is related to maintaining a stable posture and calming any intention to move. So this step also includes being mindful of your posture and keeping totally motionless. The Vimuttimagga notes that one is to notice any shifting of one’s posture such as: bending down; stooping, bending all over, bending forward, moving, quivering, trembling and shaking. The Patis. notes this includes stilling any bending backwards, sideways, in all directions, and forwards, and no perturbation, excitement, moving, and shaking, of the body, quiet and subtle.

Because of all this, I disagree with teachers who say that it is OK to move during your meditation as long as you are doing it ‘mindfully’. Rather, you must make every effort not to move and to notice the subtle vibrations and movements that your body makes on its own and let those calm down. Don’t do this in a forceful manner. Don’t strain your body to remain still, just become aware of the subtle physical movements and slowly let them dissolve and quiet down. This helps to give rise to and stabilize samadhi.

MN 125 illustrates this with a simile:

When the elephant is being trained to be unshakable, he does not move his forelegs or his hindlegs; he does not move his forequarters or his hindquarters; he does not move his head, ears, tusks, tail, or trunk. The king’s elephant is able to endure blows from spears, blows from swords, blows from arrows, blows from other beings, and the thundering sounds of drums, kettledrums, trumpets, and tomtoms.

As you continue to meditate, maintain mindfulness of whole body breathing and the holistic knowing of the breath energies and activities. Sometimes the relaxation process can happen all by itself and all you need to do is just be mindful of the body and let everything naturally relax. If this happens, great. You didn’t need to do anything but pay attention. This is the natural way. Some people, either because of experience or other reasons, are better at this than others.

You can also try just being mindful of the body breathing and noticing the areas where it is not relaxed. Then see if just watching them leads to the releasing of some tension. Ideally, you want to get to the point where this is all you need to do, just be mindful of the places where the body holds tension and have them relax and settle on their own. Let the body breathe by itself and do not interfere in any way. Notice how you are subtly trying to control the breath and let that sense of control go. Try to keep a mind clear of complexities and concepts and see what happens. Just let things be.

Another method of calming the breath is focusing on the pauses between breaths. This is taught in the Sravakabhumi section of the Yogacarabhumi:

He trains thus at the time when the in-breathing has ceased and the out-breathing does not yet arise, or vice versa, and he takes as cognitive object this state which is devoid of in- and out-breathing. Moreover, previously the breathing was coarse and hard of sensation because the meditation had not been properly practized; now as a result of the practice it becomes gentle and pleasant of sensation.

If however, just being mindful of the body is not enough to automatically calm down bodily processes then there are more active methods one can try. As I explain at length in “On Sati”, Buddhist meditation is often much more than just being calmly attentive in the present. It tells us outright that it is important to learn how to actively cultivate factors such as pasaddhi instead of just being passively aware.

The Buddha clearly differentiated from these two different kinds of anapanasati in SN 54.6. In this sutta, the ascetic Arittha says he practices anapanasati by giving up desires for sensual pleasures in the past and in the future as well as by having eliminated any aversion for internal and external phenomena.

The Buddha replies “That is mindfulness of breathing, Arittha; I don’t deny it.” But then he goes on to explain that anapanasati is only “fulfilled in detail” through the practice of the sixteen modes. So clearly, the Buddha believed that the practice of the sixteen modes expounded in the APSS is the superior practice while at the same time accepting that one could practice Arittha’s simpler version of anapanasati which consists in just being mindful of the breath without desires or aversions.

The APSS asks one to set an intention to breathe and pay attention in skillful ways, and this can be proactive, energetic (viriya) and analytical (dhammavicaya) not just passive. Most importantly, you are moving the meditation forward progressively, you have a direction (the sixteen steps) you’re not just being in the present with whatever is happening. You are also consciously working to make meditative progress through the sixteen steps which are ultimately subtler ways of letting go and developing samadhi. The Buddha also said:

“one exerts a fabrication [sankhara] against the cause of suffering for which dispassion comes from the fabrication of exertion, and develops equanimity with regard to the cause of suffering for which dispassion comes from the development of equanimity.” – MN 101

What is this fabrication one exerts? MN 44 says there are bodily fabrications of breathing, verbal fabrications of directed thought and evaluation and mental fabrications of perceptions and feelings. This is what one is “training”. So the Buddha does not deny that being equanimous towards things can lead to samadhi and dispassion, but he stresses that active methods of cultivation are also important.

This is also stressed by the list of the “bases of power” which includes elements of persistent intention (chanda) and energetic effort based on persistence and exertion. Even equanimity, just being with whatever arises without reacting, initially requires some conscious effort to develop (you have to keep your mind from moving away from or towards phenomena) and is ultimately is also a mental construct as well.

This process of skillful effort is deemed necessary by the Buddha because we – the untrained and unenlightened – are never “just aware”. We are always fabricating and imputing concepts, intentions and attachments into sense experience – in order to get more pleasure and avoid pain. But we do so unskillfully.

To get to the point of just being aware without imputation, we have to fabricate away unskillful fabrications. Once one has trained and developed one’s samadhi, then equanimity will be more effortless and will arise from samadhi itself, and this higher equanimity can then be let go by not fabricating anything. But to get to this refined level, we start with fabricating a base of samadhi by working on the physical, the coarsest element of experience, and move to more subtle elements.

This is like climbing a ladder. You gradually step off one rung to step to a higher one, and so on until you have climbed to the top and no longer need any of the rungs themselves or the entire ladder.

This training also includes elements of experimentation and of trial and error. This aspect of Buddhist meditation is important because to be able to understand how causality works on different mental phenomena we must, like scientists, make experimental changes to our environment and our mind and see what works to calm ourselves down and increase mindfulness.

To understand the complex causal relationships going on in our experiential life, we watch carefully as we alter certain features. Over time, we get better at achieving the result we desire, samadhi and wisdom. The Buddha compared this aspect of training to a king’s cook (in SN 47:8).

The cook has to try different recipes and food to see what will please his master in the same way that a meditator has to adjust physical and mental phenomena and learn through experience what works and what doesn’t. Since everyone is different in some way, learning to self evaluate like this is crucial for our own self development and cultivation.

So, to practice a more “active” form of calming, we notice how the breath conditions the body, and the effects that calming the breath have on calming the body. Try to breathe more subtly, more calmly and see how this conditions the body. You may repeat a phrase or word (such “breathe calming the whole body”, or the words “calm”, “relax”).

Thich Nhat Hanh recommends putting on a slight smile as a relaxation technique and provides the verse following verse to silently repeat in the mind: “In, out – Deep, slow – Calm, ease – Smile, release – Present moment, wonderful moment.”

The calming step is closely connected with the previous one and it can be useful to practice them together using the body scan method to calm each body part step by step. As you perform the body scan, think about the breath healing and calming each area, you can even visualize the breath moving into them and soothing them or imagine breathing in through the pores in each spot. One could also do two body scans, one just experiencing and one for relaxing. Find what works for you.

As we gently place our attention on each part of the body, we soften and let go of any tightness in the body, a lot of our discomfort in meditation comes from patterns of psychosomatic tension in the body. We notice these places of contraction, the muscular knots and so on, and we set our intention to release them and to release our aversion to them as well.

Deliberately calm your body as you exhale, feeling the breath blowing away the tension in your body. You can focus on the areas of your body that are most tense, these will be different with each person. Try releasing the tightness in the shoulders and back of the neck. Soften the muscles of the face, especially around the mouth, forehead and eyes. Relax your hands and open them up. Calm the belly and let it naturally expand outwards. These are common points of tension, if any of these are more tight than others, then make a note of it.

Many times we do not like these feelings of tightness and want to force them to go away, but the best way to relax them is not to push them away but to subtly let them go and let them dissolve on their own and this includes releasing our aversion to them. This process is subtle, it is a middle way between rejecting and not doing anything, with time you will learn to release without aversion. You can use the following phrases for each body part or for the body as a whole if helpful:

• Breathe sensing … (any body section, or whole body)
• Breathe experiencing …
• Breathe noticing tension in …
• Breathe releasing tension in …
• Breathe calming …
• Breathe relaxing …

After some time, these phrases can and should be dropped and one can do this non-conceptually, think of these props as training wheels. After the scanning you can settle back to the feeling of the breath in one area and spread awareness from that spot so it fills the entire body.

Another technique is to notice how the breath energy or sensation feels on a particular part of the body. There are all sorts of sensations that are connected with breathing and one should pay attention to all of them and let the body relax as you do so. There’s nothing supernatural about these breath energy sensations, they are simply the phenomenological counterparts to all of the muscular, organ and nerve activity which your body uses to breathe.

Sense the breath and the body sensations at once and notice how they affect and relax each other. One can also “work with the breath” by feeling the breath on the different sections of the body as if one is breathing “out” of that part of the body, or “breathe into” that part of the body, mentally “sending” breath energy to that part, imagining your breath is moving towards that part and relaxing it. Do this in a calm way not forcing. You can also visualize this as a calming wind using a cool color like green or blue.

If there is discomfort or pain, stay still, don’t judge it, and stick to the meditation. If it’s still a problem after some time, watch the pain, and notice if you can imagine breath energies moving into it and relaxing it.

Try taking some long deep breaths and let this relax you. Learn to fill your lungs with less effort and then slowly let the breathing naturally settle. Then just notice the effects of the deep breaths.

It is important to balance the energizing factors of breath training and the calming factors, too much emphasis on the calm factors might put you to sleep or in a stupor, too much energizing factor will make you anxious or produce a “fever based on the body” as the Buddha taught.

There must also be a middle way between too much activity and too little action. Basically the way I see it is that there are passive and active aspects to meditation practice, some teachers only teach the passive aspect of ‘just watching’, others focus too much on the doing and making things happen. But ultimately you have to use your own experience and discernment to find out what works for you.

Think of it like training a young elephant. You are being active and guiding the elephant to proper action, but you also have to let it learn on its own without forcing it, hurting it or micromanaging it otherwise it will probably lash out and cause all sorts of harm. So you have to find a balance and gently lead it to the proper behavior with positive reinforcement and other skillful tricks.

After you’ve been working at it for some time you’ll notice that you are following the breathing body better, without being distracted. The breath should also become less coarse, and more refined and the breathing process more relaxed. You may also begin to feel pleasurable sensations, this can lead to greater mindfulness and calmer breathing. This is confirmed by the Patis. which says that one breathes in increasingly subtler breaths “through joy.”

The Visuddhimagga says: When the bodily disturbance has been stilled by the gradual cessation of gross in-breaths and out-breaths, then both the body and the mind become light: the physical body is as though it were ready to leap up into the air. – Vism.282

A Theragatha verse says: Light, varily, feels my body filled with joy and bliss. Like a cotton ball carried by the breeze, floating…

The Vimuttimagga states that when the breath and mind have been calmed one may feel a pleasant sensation which it called the nimitta, this is said to be “similar to that which is produced in the action of spinning cotton or silk cotton. Also, it is likened to the pleasant feeling produced by a breeze.”

The Vimuttimagga also states that after practicing for some time the breath becomes fainter and fainter until it disappears. When this happens, you can ask yourself “how did the breath become calm?” and investigate, then just rest.

The Pali commentary and the Patis. compare the latter stages of this step to the sound of the gong getting progressively fainter. This adds an extra challenge to the practice because the breath becomes increasingly subtle and thus harder to sense. The commentary states that increasingly stronger mindfulness is needed as the breath becomes fainter and compares it to:

As in doing needlework on a piece of fine cloth, it is necessary that the needle should be fine, too, and the instrument for boring the needle’s eye still finer; so, while developing this subject of meditation, which is like fine cloth, it is necessary that both mindfulness, which is like the needle, and understanding associated therewith, which is like the instrument that bores the needle’s eye, should be strong.

The Buddha describes samadhi states as expanded whole body states. He tells us to spread the sense of pleasure throughout our body as one would knead water into flour to make dough or as a cool spring wells up into a lake, filling it with coolness. These metaphors show that the Buddha’s view of samadhi was not one of contracted laser like focus but one of expansive un-scattered awareness. It is a state of mind that is integrated and has a sense of togetherness. One should feel as if the breath, the body and the mind are getting more and more unified and broad.

Maintain the broad sense of the breath energies throughout your entire body, sensing the breathing sensations and energies all throughout our body and continue lightly adjusting them to become more pleasant and calming. This allows for pleasurable sensations to continue to spread throughout the body. Noticing pleasure throughout the body is indicated in the next tetrad so in this step we are already practicing with the second tetrad in mind.

The Patis. also seems to say that this step includes aspects of mind as well. How can this be if this is the section on mindfulness of the body? This is because ‘the body’ (kaya) is not ultimately separate from the heart-mind (citta). Body conditions mind and vice versa. Any attempt to meditate on one of these will ultimately bring us into contact with the other, even if only peripherally. Breathing mindfully and sitting still are intentional actions, and there is will involved in them. Instead of ignoring this aspect of experience, we should also extend our mindfulness to it.

So as we practice this tetrad, we are not oblivious to the mental processes, with a single minded focus on the body. That would be a one sided practice. Instead, we foreground the body, but also peripherally remain aware of the mind, especially how the mind affects the body. We need not bring the mind to the center of attention however, we just leave it in the “background”, so to speak.

To do this, we just have to notice the mental aspects related to body and breath, such as our intentions to move or breathe in a certain way, as well as our intentions to control the body and breathing processes and so on. We notice how our thoughts about the body conditions the body. Then we can also work to relax and calm these body directed intentions, letting them settle down. This includes all the active elements of our meditation that we were using to attempt to calm the body. As we do this, we also calm the body in subtler and deeper ways.

Since body and breath are ultimately one interconnected system, we should pay attention to this. This way of attending naturally leads to subtler refinements of mindfulness which extend to the sensations/feelings (vedanas) of the second satipatthana as one feels pleasant and unpleasant sensations during the meditation session.

Fulfilling the satipatthanas

The Buddha said that the practice of anapanasati fulfills or completes the four satipatthanas. This could be understood to mean that the key ‘meditative territory’ covered by the four satipatthanas is also covered by anapanasati. Because of this, it is useful to look at how the anapanasati practice is closely linked to the other satipatthana exercises.

The ugly and unclean

One satipatthana exercise that anapanasati can be expanded into is the practice of asubhasañña, the “recognition of non-beauty” or asucisañña, “the recognition of the unclean”. The main reason why we might want to do this contemplation is that it helps us relate to the body without clinging. The SPS outlines this exercise like this:

Now, a seeker examines their body from the hair tips down to the soles of the feet, wrapped in skin and full of unclean things. They examine like this: ‘This body has head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, intestines, stomach lining, undigested food, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, saliva, snot, fluid in the joints, and urine.’

This list is not meant to be comprehensive, and some texts add “and whatever else…” at the end, indicating that it is just an example of what to contemplate and so one could easily do our own list to meditate on or just use whatever comes to mind.

A sutta in the Anapana Samyutta directly states that anapanasati and meditation on the ugly or “repulsive” aspects of the body can be practiced together:

Now, a mendicant might wish: ‘May I meditate perceiving the repulsive in the unrepulsive.’ So let them closely focus on this immersion due to mindfulness of breathing. Now, a mendicant might wish: ‘May I meditate perceiving the unrepulsive in the repulsive…May I meditate perceiving the repulsive in the unrepulsive and the repulsive…perceiving the unrepulsive in the repulsive and the unrepulsive….May I meditate staying equanimous, mindful and aware, rejecting both the repulsive and the unrepulsive.’ So let them closely focus on this immersion due to mindfulness of breathing. – SN 54.8

It is important to understand that this exercise is not meant to lead to a hatred or dislike of the body. Rather, it is meant to provide a balanced outlook on our body and those of others, since we are often clinging to bodies as being beautiful or sexually attractive, clean or nice. Because of our deep habits of ignorance and craving, our minds naturally turn away from the unclean aspects of the bodies we interact with and focus on the attractive and clean.

To counteract this habit we practice asubhasañña, the contemplation of non-beauty or ugliness. Instead of seeing bodies through the lens of beauty, cleanliness and thus sensuality, we direct our attention to aspects of the body we don’t usually think about, especially the insides, and this leads to a sense of dispassion and equanimity about bodies in general and a weakening of desire. The fact that equanimity and balance is the goal of the practice is clear in the progression outlined in the above sutta quotation, which ends with a kind of equanimity that is beyond both the repulsive and the unrepulsive (or attractive/beautiful).

To some persons this practice and its goal of weakening sense desire might seem unnatural or repressive. However, this is actually a broadening of our perspective to accept the ugly and unclean aspects of the body that we normally prefer to ignore and repress. When this is done, one can experience a real sense of peace that is free from the impossible notion that sense pleasures can ever be fulfilled by endlessly pursuing them.

A Chinese parallel to the SPS also mentions that one can contemplate the function of each body part. In this sense one can see the body for how it functions instead of how it seems, and this can provide yet another alternative perspective to our usual one fueled by sensuality.

It’s clear that this exercise includes a kind of evaluation of the body parts, not just an observation of it. One is seeing them as ugly and unclean. However, how strong of an emphasis one wants to place on this element of the practice will depend on one’s life circumstances, situation, psychological disposition, and affect. The point is to arrive at a balanced attitude towards the body. So if one senses that the practice is leading one towards one of the extremes (hatred or craving regarding the body) then one should adjust how one does this practice.

For example, while a celibate monk might want to strongly emphasize this since he wants to fully quench his sense desire for bodies, a married layperson might not be ready to take this practice to that level yet and might be content with just observing the body parts in a more neutral way.

Likewise, someone who has a sense of hatred or depression towards their body for whatever reason (such as not living up to social standards of beauty or a history of abuse) might prefer to just meditate on the function of the various body parts with a sense of equanimity. After all, the parts of the body one has now perform their function no matter what society thinks is beautiful or ugly or what has happened to us in the past.

The attitude we should use in practicing this exercise can be seen from the simile the Buddha uses in the SPS: a man going through a bag of various types of grains and seeds. As he does this, he has no sense that these are beautiful or attractive, they are just grains. Because of this, he also does not have any strong dislike or hatred for them. So this practice is done with a neutral sensibility towards the various body parts.

From the point of view of anapanasati practice, one way to expand breath awareness to this contemplation is to meditate on the body parts connected with breathing, such as the lungs, the diaphragm, the nose, the ribcage and so on. This simplification of the non-beauty contemplation is not outlined in any particular sutta.

However, the fact that this practice can be done in a simpler manner is taught by the Buddha. DN 28 simplifies this practice by teaching that one can just meditate on the skeleton, after having put aside contemplating the skin and flesh. This simpler way of meditating on just the skin, flesh and bones is also recommended by Bhikkhu Analayo.

This practice is easily combined with the body scan method. As you scan the body, pay attention to the whole skin around your body, then to the muscles and fleshy parts, then finally to hardest parts, the bony parts. Watch how all of these elements take part in the act of breathing. Notice the touch points of the bodily posture, where it is touching the ground and your clothing. You can also go through the more extensive list in the SPS, focusing on each part individually.

Depending on your disposition, you can then move to contemplating the body as unclean and as not beautiful. You can think about how the skin is filled with dead matter, grease, dirt and dead cells, as well as bacteria feeding on this. The Chinese parallel to SPS also has one meditate on the various unclean liquids which come out of the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, the mouth, the urethra, and the anus.

Practiced in the external mode, this meditation is very powerful at dissipating sexual desire we have for others. Even laypersons can use it in situations where they would not want to feel sexual desire for another person (such as a person who is not our spouse).

This practice can also be done with more emphasis on vipassana by paying attention to the impermanence of the various physical elements.

Four properties

The close link between anapanasati and the meditation on the “four properties” or “elements” is supported by the Patis., which equates sabbakaya with this contemplation. The Abhidharmakosabhasya also connects anapanasati practice with the four elements. It states: Observe that “These breaths are not only air, but the four primary elements…”

It is my opinion that what these texts have in mind here is that breathing is ultimately connected with every other aspect of the body on multiple levels, which is absolutely true. The breath is a “body among bodies” and we should attend to ‘all the bodies’ conditioned by the breath. The kaya in sabbakaya has the same broad meaning as body in English. It does not just mean the physical body but also can just mean a group or collection of things (as in, a body of water or a body of men). Therefore, sabbakaya could just as easily mean “the whole collection” (of phenomena).

The bodily properties that the Buddha points out that we should be sensitive to are usually divided into four – air, heat/temperature, solidity (literally “earth”), and liquidity (“water”). Because all these properties are interconnected in one physical system and all rely on each other, one could use anapanasati to contemplate the other three.

For example the water property is affected as our breathing infuses our blood with oxygen. Also, air can be humid or dry, carrying water particles in it. The earth property is affected when our ribcage and all solid bodily parts expand to take in air. The heat property affects also how the breath is felt. One process which includes three of these elements is sweating, the external air element makes contact with water element on our skin and cools the temperature of the body down.

This practice can also be performed through body scans. You can sweep through the body and notice the different properties as you move through the body.

Another way to do this practice is to seamlessly move from mindfulness of breathing (air) to the other properties. Instead of scanning the body, just sense where each property is most obviously felt and be mindful of that aspect of the body. The breath can lead us to all the other properties. It comes into our lungs by engaging the diaphragm and torso (solidity element), it enters our bloodstream (liquid element) and is pumped throughout our body by the heart. We can sense warmth and temperature at the center of our body most easily.

This practice allows us to see this interplay between the body and breathing, as well as sharpen our interoception – our internal sense of the body as a whole. So, to meditate on this aspect of satipatthana, try to notice the different qualities of the body. The qualities of hardness and solidity are especially noticeable in the bones and in the touch points where the body is making contact with something. The air element is obviously felt in the breath itself. Liquidity can be felt in our throat and mouth, as well as when tuning into our pulse and temperature can be felt throughout the body as well.

The Buddha compares this practice to a butcher who cuts up a cow and sells the different parts. As he does this, the perception of “cow” as a single entity disappears, and he now only sees the various parts.

This also shows that the goal of this practice is perceiving not-self (anatta), the fact that there is nothing which is a substantial unchanging entity that is in control. By seeing that the body is just a collection of elements, the grasping at a solid sense of the body and also at a self as owner of the body is weakened. Since none of these basic material properties are under our control, they cannot said to be truly “mine” and thus, any temporary collection of these properties, like our body, is not really “ours” in a very fundamental sense. It is merely like being in a guest house, or wearing borrowed clothes. It must be given back. So there’s no reason to take it so personally.

Also, through this exercise, we can “butcher” any harmful idea that our body is superior or inferior to someone else’s body because of certain physical features (skin color, reproductive capacity, birth circumstances, genealogy, etc). All bodies are just collections of various properties after all, destined to break apart.

Likewise, the separation we usually create between internal and external, self and other, can be eliminated gradually with this contemplation by focusing on the internal and then the external manifestations of the four properties. After all, there is no ultimate difference between the material properties in our body and those outside of our bodies (the hardness of the ground, the wind, the heat of the sun, etc). Indeed, there is a constant interchange going on between inner and outer as we eat, drink, breathe and so on. Also, if this interchange stopped, if we stopped eating or breathing, the body would die. So this contemplation also shows us the insecurity of our existential situation.

Ultimately there are just various natural processes going on, which we have decided to crystallize into “my body” and “outside my body”. The more we do this contemplation, the less we experience the body narrowly, as a closed off independent phenomenon and the more we see it as a nexus in a vast interconnected system. We are not in control of this system and yet we depend on it to live, thus we should not think that we “own” our body and our life in some ultimate sense.

This meditation can also be helpful for observing pain, anxious bodily formations, and the discomfort of sitting. It can provide a sense of equanimity to observe these in terms of just four properties interacting, instead of as “pain” and so on.

Death

Anapanasati can also be easily shifted towards mindfulness of death (maranasati). This is a very powerful practice for cultivating an understanding of instability and impermanence as well as for increasing one’s motivation for further practice and for weakening hatred and sense desire.

This meditation can add an unshakable sense of peace and letting go to our everyday life. It can also lead us to appreciate our life more as well as to better appreciate other people. As the Buddha said, those who realize they must die will end their fighting. And of course, when death inevitably does come, we might be able to face it with a calmer mind.

The Buddha understood that if one does not have a healthy relationship with death, one can easily end up trying to escape it through harmful and unskillful ways. It usually results in more clinging to views and the sense of self. A lot of this process of “death denial” is now being studied in Psychology through what is called Terror Management Theory.

The SPS teaches this practice through contemplating the various stages of decomposition of a corpse. This seems to include some element of imagination, as the meditator visualizes their body decaying, being eaten by animals and breaking apart. One could certainly do this practice. However, there are other ways to contemplate one’s death which is more suited to anapanasati. This pairs the breathing process itself with the fact that one day it will end, and this means death.

This method is described in AN 6.19 and AN 8.73. In these suttas, various Buddhist monastics take turns in explaining to the Buddha how they develop mindfulness of death. The Buddha recommends that one should meditate on death as if one only had enough time left over to eat one mouthful of food or just as long as it takes to breathe in or breathe out. This contemplation counters our usual habit of pushing death off into the far future and brings it into the present moment as a real possibility.

This method can easily be integrated into breath meditation, especially since the breath is such a necessary condition for our life and its cyclic nature is reminiscent of the cycles which mark time.

To practice this meditation, we imagine that this very in breath is our last. How would we feel if that was the case? Are we really completely sure we will breathe in again? There are many conditions on which our life depends, and sometimes, they go wrong in surprising ways. This contemplation can also be linked with asubha by thinking about all the organs that the breath depends on and how they are liable to injury and disease.

Even if we will not die today, each breath is certainly bringing us closer to that time. If we think about it, there is a certain number of breaths we will take in our lifetime. Each breath is one less breath lived, one step closer to the last one.

As we continue this meditation, we simply keep the possibility of death in our mind as we attend to the in and out breath. We can also notice the pauses in between the breaths and the stillness that can be sensed. We contemplate how when we die, the breathing processes will also be still like this. If we get distracted or bored, we may even hold the breath on the out-breath a little bit and notice how it feels. One day, we will not be able to end this feeling, it will go all the way.

This practice can be very powerful and produce some anxiety in certain persons. So it is good to balance it with calming and relaxing the body. One can alternate between periods of focusing on death and periods of calming the breathing. At the same time, we want this practice to make us feel slightly unsettled, we want it to sting. If it is not, then we are not really practicing it well and we are not really challenging our grasping at body, life and self.

For obvious reasons, this contemplation can easily lead to insight into impermanence as well as not self. Death is nothing but the impermanence of the body and not-self can be felt when one realizes that we cannot control when and how the breathing processes will end.