Breath by Breath notes

YOUR KINDLE NOTES FOR: Breath by Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation (Shambhala Classics) by Larry Rosenberg

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57 Highlights | 45 Notes

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The cultivation of mindfulness is ultimately a matter of life and death, not in a scary way, but in the sense that we are always at risk, in every moment, for missing what is deepest and richest in our lives, the texture of the tapestry itself. We might say (every pun intended) that the richness lies right beneath our noses in any and every moment.

Keep an eye on what's going on!

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No two breaths are the same; no two moments are the same. Each one is our life. Each one is infinitely deep and complete in itself. The challenge here is to embody and live this awareness, to work with the automatic habits of mind that would turn us into automatons and betray our genius, to walk our own path, as Larry is continually encouraging the reader to do, to find our own way, breath by breath, to taste silence and discover liberation within each and any breath.

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Sometimes, especially when people are new to the practice, they say they’re bored with watching the breathing. I try to use this story to awaken their interest, but occasionally I have to resort to more extreme measures. One new meditator kept coming to interviews with a chronic lament, “The breath is so boring.” Finally I asked him if he’d ever heard of Brooklyn yoga. He said no. I told him to close his mouth tight and close off both nostrils with his fingers. We sat that way for some time until, finally, he let go of his nose and gasped for air. “Was that breath boring?” I said.

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Even in this first instruction, we are learning something extremely important, to allow the breathing to follow its own nature, to breathe itself. We are not trying to make the breath deep or keep it shallow. We are seeing how it is.

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Thich Nhat Hanh has introduced many beautiful gathas, or dharmic poems, which when keyed to the breath are another way to stabilize our attention. In my own teaching, I favor weaning the meditator away from any conceptual aids as soon as possible, turning to bare unmediated attention to the breath. But each person’s

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We woke up every day at 3:00 A.M., and would sit around the clock—fifty minutes of sitting followed by ten minutes of brisk walking—until 11:00 P.M.

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As we approached the forty-five-day mark, we heard that it was an ancient tradition at that monastery to spend one week in the middle of the ninety days without any sleep at all.

Pourquoi ?

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It’s not a problem unless you make it into one.

take it easy, stay cool

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We’re not looking at the breath in order to get to enlightenment.

right now

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Enlightenment, after all, is just one more bone. It’s an idea we have.

another idea

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Especially in the modern world, where everybody is so impressed with variety and complexity, so desperate to be entertained, it is a relief to settle into this simple repetitive act.

totally right

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The act of breathing begins our life as we come out of the womb; in our last moment, when we cease breathing, our life is over. It only makes sense that the breath should also have a profound influence on all the moments in between.

You might from that vantage point go back and study impermanence with the other contemplations, seeing that the breath itself, for instance, arises and passes away.

one breath, one life - arise and pass away

going deeper

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but you’re beginning to get a taste of what it is like to be free and clear, wholehearted and effortless.

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I’d read a great many books, even Dharma books, but I was making this itch into one of the worst catastrophes in human history.

listen , I got troubles

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Desire isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but we need to see how pervasive and driven this whole tendency is, and bring some balance to it, so that we give ourselves some choices.

out of a job

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It is also sometimes shocking to see what the mind is taken up with, the way it spends its day, perhaps in sharp contrast to what you’re actually doing, or to your sense of who you are.

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It can be wonderful to see something about ourselves, even when what we’re seeing is not especially wonderful.

lovely insight

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“Can’t decide? Ah, great decision, Larry-san! My teacher, he say, If you confused, do confused. Do not be confused by confusion.’ Understand? Be totally confused, Larry-san, then I guarantee: no problem at all.”

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Actually, however, all the wisdom we need is inside us, where this epic drama is taking place.

getting to know me

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The eleventh contemplation deals with a mind state that is extremely valuable for human beings but that most of us have little experience of.

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The essence of the twelfth contemplation is to feel that liberation, to see what it is like when the mind is not attached to things.

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The twelfth contemplation, then, teaches the ways of attachment and letting go. You learn about them by clear seeing, watching the mind when it clings, watching when it doesn’t.

This one has nearly destroyed the world, as people wage self-righteous wars over their ethnic, religious, political, or economic ideas.

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This process—of appropriating everything as me or mine—is constantly going on and has as its whole basis the existence of a self.

but, but, but...

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They might spend years tracing some mental formation back to its source.

did Dad like me?

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You see that in a certain sense content doesn’t matter, because whatever it is passes away.

machts nichts

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We’ve heard the content of our mental formations so many times we’re sick of them.

enough already

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You just give total attention to the movement of energy known as fear, total mindfulness, not separating yourself from it at all, also not identifying with it.

study, observe, feel closely

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We see that fear isn’t something we own or have any control over. We’ve been living as if we do, as if we should be able not to feel it. But all we can do is meet it skillfully.

getting to know my fear

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It is unintelligent to try to hold on to things, to freeze them, when we can’t.

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They hear that everything is empty and want to agree with that, because they belong to the group.

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It’s actually wonderful to see that you’re nobody and that all the fear you’ve had all your life was in relation to this self you thought you had.

seeing thru worries

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You sit and are aware of the breathing, but not in a pinpoint way. Your attention is not at the nostrils or chest or abdomen but, in a much more open way, on the whole body, a panoramic view of the sitting breathing body.

single point to whatever

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When that disappears, there’s just the innocence of a body sitting there breathing and knowing that it is.

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There’s a feeling of being breathed, rather than of breathing to attain anything.

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Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha. —Ajahn Chah

so true and so hard to believe

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They say you don’t need to develop jhanic states, just enough concentration to be with any object for as long as it exists, so you can see that it arises and passes away.

when something comes to mind

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It is good to sit a little longer than you want to so you see the part of your mind that resists practice,

plus a bit more

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If you sit only when you want to, you will know only the mind that likes to sit.

know different minds

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Silence as I am using the term is a dimension of existence. You can live in it. It is what spiritual life is all about. It is quite literally unfathomable, limitless space permeated by a vast stillness. In a way it is inside us—that is where we seek it—though at some point in our exploration words like inside and outside, all the spatial terms I’ve been forced to use, don’t mean a thing.

place to go

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