Meditation Technique pt.1: Mindfulness of Breathing

One of my favorite Buddha images, Sukhothai Historical Park.

In my last post, I talked about the conditions that lead to the experience of seeing clearly, or vipassana meditation. In this post, I want to begin the discussion of the actual techniques that I personally use to steer this journey in the right direction, so as to avoid the numerous pitfalls that await any unsuspecting practitioner.

So what are these pitfalls?

To me, the practice of meditation is like walking a tight-rope, with craving on one side and aversion on the other. Basically, the Buddha said that these two things, plus the third of ignorance, are what keep us locked in the wheel of samsara, or suffering. Craving, in meditation, can be seen as reaching for positive experiences and aversion as pushing negative ones away. In either experience, the mind isn't equanimous. That is to say that it isn't calm, centered, and steady. Another way of looking at it is to say an equanimous mind is always content with what it has, and it doesn't look to change things.

This doesn't mean that we don't want to improve our lives, but that we are willing to accept and be at peace with the way things for us in this very moment. As it turns out, this acceptance is the key to manifesting change.

In order to see clearly into the nature of the mind and the reality of any given moment, we need to develop a mind that is calm, steady, and centered. When we practice observation, we take a step back from our reality and into the space of the silent observer, making it easier to see these three poisons, as they are called, of craving, aversion, and ignorance at work in our lives all the time, without us even knowing it.

So when I sit down for my daily meditation practice, I use a variety of techniques to calm the mind and maintain awareness. Or I should say I try, because much of the time, I am unable to achieve this. "Try" is a tricky word though, as the idea about Right Effort is a fine line. If you try too hard, the mind is overstrained, if you don't try hard enough, the mind is too scattered. In the middle, somewhere, is concentration.

So what do I try?

Meditation in Therevada Buddhism generally comes in two flavors: vipassana and samatha. Samatha is calm-abiding and vipassana is clear-seeing. Some like one more than the other, some practice both. I see them as connected, and have noticed that many times, clear-seeing follows calm abiding. So oftentimes, I start with a concentration practice that leads to samatha.

Breathing. The breath is the most consistently recognizable aspect of our direct experience of any given moment. It's always happening. So is the heart, but the heartbeat is much more subtle and therefore more difficult to perceive. This makes the breath a great place to start. The point of concentration is to keep your attention fixed on the present moment. Observation leads to attention. So basically, one way or other, you want to watch the breath. Some people don't like this description, and prefer to think of it as being the breath, so as to not create a duality between the experience of breathing and the experiencer. Either way, it's not something that you need to think about.

Since I like to keep my home practice nice and loose and relaxed, I don't always use one technique for practicing mindfulness of breathing. Sometimes, I focus only on the sensation of the breath coming and and going out of the tip of the nostril, as taught by Pa Auk Sayadaw, a Buddhist monk and meditation teacher from Burma. This is the technique that I find to be the most effective, as there is no movement in the location of where the breath is actually being observed or perceived. When my concentration moves, my mind tends to move as well. Having a fixed point to observe keeps my mind steady, and even though there is movement in the breath passing through the nostrils, the location of the observation remains the same.

When my intention is weak, I find that my mind is unable to focus on such a small aspect of my experience. On days like this, I just try to pick up any part of the breath I can. I notice that when I am practicing like this, the clarity of concentration is minimal compared to those days when my intention is stronger and I am determined to watch the breath at the tip of the nose. But somedays, I am just content with even trying to practice anything, so I don't push my luck.

A couple of years ago, mindfulness of breathing was the extent of my practice, and I sort of took in the whole experience of the breath coming in through the nose, going down the throat, and filling the belly, before going back out again. At that point, I was counting 1 through 10 on the exhalations, and then starting over again. After coming across some more teachings and a little bit of self-analysis, I sort of realized that my point of concentration had somehow shifted from the breath to the act of counting itself. That's not to say that this technique doesn't work, it's just that you have to be careful and check in to see what you are actually concentrating on.

When my concentration is weak, I still use counting, but when I don't need it, I let it go. 

As soon as I realized that my concentration from breathing, or counting as it was, was weak, I'd just go back to the breath. Always back to breath. My mind would wander, and I'd bring it back. It would wander again, and I would bring it back again. There was no other aspect of my practice. When I started to look at the other aspects of my experience, such as the mind's tendency to bring forth judgment and criticism, a whole other world seemed to open up for me. Now, at any moment in my life, I can use this practice of checking in with the mind to see what's happening there. It's a wonderful partnership, mindfulness of breathing and mindfulness of mind.

I don't want to get too much into mindfulness of mind in this post, but I am a big believer in it's importance in every practice of mindfulness, due to it's tendency to show up and take over.


So when the mind is unable to stay with the experience of breathing, what happens next? 

This is when the practice really helps us see how our minds like to take something small, blow it out of proportion, and turn it back around on ourselves. Here we are, practicing meditation and doing something good for ourselves, and as soon as the mind slips in concentration, we find the judgmental mind steps in to tear us down for it.

"What's wrong with you, why can't you concentrate?"

This is something that you will probably hear from day one. First of all, you should ask, "Who are you?" There's no one here but you, so you don't need to listen when the voice in your head is trying to talk to you like you are someone else. Basically, the voice in yourself is like a wind-up toy, and is no one. You are the one listening and feeling bad for what this voice is telling you.

Don't believe the voice in your head!

What I do when I "catch" this voice beating me up for my inability to focus, which happens on a daily basis, is I do my best to let it fall off of me. Like a hot coal, it can only hurt me if I catch it, which is exactly what we tend to do when we don't know that this voice is not worth listening to. Sometimes, my response is somewhat of an internal laugh, sometimes even an external smile. "Ha," I say back to it, "I see you at work, and I know you aren't real." 

Careful to not start a lengthy dialogue with this voice in your head, or try too hard to figure out where "you" stop and the voice begins. It doesn't really matter, just notice its tendency to bring negativity into the forefront of your experience and that will be enough for you to stop believing it. As far as dealing with it without believing it, well, that seems to take practice. Since this voice runs the show for us much of the time, it's not exactly an easy transition to make.

Keep "calling it out" and it will lose its power over you. 

Don't judge it, and don't pick a fight with it. Just by shining the light of awareness into the dark places in our lives, healing takes place. You don't need to bring in the troops; flicking on the light-switch is enough. If you try to fight back, you will find your mind has lost its balance. If you stay present, and neither grab this hot coal, nor try to swing at with a bat, you will notice that your mind has become calm, stable, and has the ability to watch your direct experience as it is happening.

When you have this experience of calm presence, just keep practicing like this, neither grabbing for anything nor pushing anything away. As soon as you throw a party for yourself for "arriving" in the moment, your bouncer probably didn't see the ego sneak in the back door and now you're back in your story, thinking about how great you are and this and that. But don't believe these stories either, they probably just come from a deeper seated sense of lack and insecurity, which is probably caused from believing that voice in your head for all these years...

The great thing about meditation is that you don't need to look into everything, it will come looking for you!

Angkor Thom, Cambodia

Lately, in preparation for an upcoming 21-day vipassana course I plan to participate in, I have been trying to practice concentrating on the rising and falling of the stomach, but with little success. And by success, I mean that I have found it very hard to concentrate on this aspect of breathing as it tends to be more subtle, especially when the breath is relaxed and shallow.

So how should I be breathing?

Well, in short, you shouldn't be doing anything. We want to move toward observing any aspect of our direct experience for the way it is, not for the way we think it ought to be. Controlling the breath is not necessary, just simply allow it to be however it wants to be. Sometimes, it will be short. Sometimes, it will be long. It can be smooth or choppy. It can be deep or shallow. When it's deep and long, it's easier to observe. When it's shallow and short, it can be very difficult to observe. When the mind becomes relaxed, sometimes it feels like breathing has stopped altogether, and sometimes it does. If the breath has disappeared from your ability to observe it, just stay with the experience of waiting for it to return. It will.

The breath is the only thing you need to practice with when it comes to meditation, but for my mind, I find it helpful to include other aspects of my direct experience. For example, my attempts to concentrate solely on breathing will be met with all sorts of obstacles that are constantly changing. It could be mental chatter, pain in the body, sleepiness, or some sort of mood/attitude. If I am in a bad mood, can't focus long enough to stay with more than 3 or 4 breaths, and have shooting pains in my back, I just find it's better to go to those other experiences than to try to stay on the breath.

At one retreat I sat, the teacher, Steve Armstrong, related the practice of concentration to being like a bulldog guarding its bone. There can be an intense amount of focus and peace there, but when "life" happens, some of the various other techniques I practice can be useful in helping me avoid dead-ends and circular tracks of mental activity.

There's nothing miraculous about the practice of mindfulness of breathing, at least not in the beginning.
When you try it, and are honest with yourself, you will find that is very hard to stay focused on the breath for any amount of time. The mind will slip away very quickly, and go to any one of the things that is floating around just below the surface and waiting to pop up into our lives.

The breath is an anchor, and can help to steady the mind when the seas are rough. It's probably not something that you want to skip over completely, in pursuit of some "better" technique. Just because many people don't use this as their main practice, doesn't mean that you don't need it. As I said, it's always there, and will always be there until you die. If you only know how to deal with pain or rocky emotions, what will you do when the skies are clear and there is no turbulence?

Meditation is not just a cure for your ailments. It's more than that, it's meant to elevate your state of consciousness into a higher realm, and is relevant in every moment of your life. Don't worry about that too much though. For now, just keep breathing, and try to remain connected to the direct experience of the breath. Whether it's at the nostril or the belly, whether you count or you don't, just keep watching. 

In my next post, I'll talk about another technique that is closely related, but seems to warrant it's own category, and that is mindfulness of body. 

The 1-Hour At-Home Meditation

You might notice that I chose to include the at-home element of this article in the title, as I find the difference between meditating at home, as opposed to let's say with a group, to be monumental. Sitting with a group tends to be easier, especially because it is such an intentional act; everyone is there for the same reason and that group support really seems to help. For me anyway, sitting at home can be extremely hard. Distractions are numerous and can be found in close proximity. If I sit with a group, I turn my cell phone off and usually don't even bring it in to the room with me. At home, I use my phone as a timer and don't turn off the ringer.

This is my spot. Putting the two smaller cushions under my knees helps the pain on longer sits...

Maybe someone calls. Maybe someone stops by, like my landlord delivering a package. When I lived in Colorado last winter in a house with 3 others, I sat through everything from a party to a fight between my roommate and her boyfriend. Maybe people are stomping around, maybe the computer or that new movie I just brought home is beckoning me. Maybe I am hungry, or have to go to the bathroom. Did I forget to set the timer?

These are typical things that run through my mind when I sit for meditation at home.

But what this is really about is the 1-hour meditation, as opposed to the 10, 20, 30, or 40 minute meditations that I frequently use as well. There is just something about that entire hour that is extremely humbling and sometimes insightful. What a beautiful opportunity to see a reflection of who and what you are in that place and time. Oftentimes, what I see in that reflection, is all those places within me that are ugly: hyperactivity, impatience, resistance, etc.  Knowing this before I sit, it can take a lot of courage just to get to the point where I agree with myself that this is something that I want to do. Okay, maybe want isn't the right word, let's go with willing.

This morning was one of such times when I agreed with myself to sit for an hour. It has been a decision that I have been making a lot lately. I think it was 3 weeks ago when I started to re-implement the 60-minute meditation into my home practice, after taking about 5 months off, with the exception of one or two times (I still sit everyday, but usually, I use a smaller increment of time, because I love to exercise my right to be lazy). 

The first 2 weeks was great, I was sitting these one hour sessions twice a day: one in the morning and one in the evening. I didn't miss a day, I didn't miss a session.

Then something happened. I think it was that obscure thing they call life, but I'm not positive. I'll have to get back to you on that one if I ever figure it out.

Nothing really happened, but the ebb and flow of life caught me off guard and suddenly I hit a wall with my practice. One thing I have grown to accept is that this happens. But what I haven't learned is how to handle it with grace. It's funny really, that I am doing such a great thing for myself by even trying this, but yet I can so easily get down on myself when I can't maintain such a rigorous schedule on top of teaching full time.

In those 60 minutes, on any given day, a lot can happen. Sometimes, the time flies by, and other times, it drags on for what seems like an eternity.

So what is the difference?

The mind. The reason why these 1-hour meditations can be such a burdensome task to complete is that it is ample time for the mind to run its course of madness, leaving you wishing you would have never allowed it the chance to take the center stage in the first place.

What we usually do is stay busy; we keep ourselves distracted with our daily lives, our responsibilities, our relationships, or some form of entertainment. It's much easier to come home and put a movie in then sit for an hour in complete silence.

One thing about my practice in particular that allows the mind so much time on the mic is that I don't have a set technique, other than to try to remain aware of some element of the present moment. If I was only focusing on my breath, or only repeating a mantra, it might keep my mind a little more focused. Then again, there are some days when focus seems impossible, and when that happens, those techniques can really get the mind going.

So what do I practice?

Mindfulness comes in different flavors, but that are only so many aspects of any given moment that we have the ability to mindful of. Mainly, we can be mindful of the 5 senses, and what the Buddha considered the 6th sense, the mind itself. So there is mindfulness of hearing, seeing, taste, touch, smell, and mindfulness of mind. In some practices, such as Dzogchen, which comes from Tibetan Buddhism, there is also the practice of mindfulness of awareness itself.

I guess for me, I see the value in practicing all of these different types of mindfulness, and I sort of let my experience naturally guide me from one to the next. Well, that's my intention, sometimes I just sit there impatiently waiting for the bell to sound.

The point of this article is to talk about the difficulty of this time bracket, not to talk about my practice. Hopefully I'll get more into the details of that in another article.

Waiting for the bell...

Waiting for the end of a meditation can easily be considered to be some of the worst moments of my life. It's ironic that I end up suffering so much in a practice that is designed to bring an end to suffering. In a 10, 20, 30, or 40-minute session, the suffering isn't nearly as bad. For example, in a 10-minute session, you can still easily catch yourself waiting for the bell, but when that moment arises, how much time can possibly remain?

In a 60-minute sit, who is to say how much time has expired, and how much remains? Time is relative, and you know this because you have experienced 60 minutes fly by and 60-minute eternities. So maybe time is crawling and you've only finished the first 10 minutes when you catch yourself waiting for the bell. Fifty more minutes!!! Oh man, I just might die...

Not only that, but things like an overactive mind or sleepiness really have time to consume you in this amount time. When I sit for an hour, I make sure to sit in the middle of my mat and put a pillow on the floor behind me. That way, if I fall asleep while sitting up, I won't crack my head open when it smashes into the floor. It's never happened, but I've woken up mid-fall many times, just in time to stop myself from falling completely.

And as far as the overactive mind goes, well, this is just a reality of my life and probably most people. The thoughts are endless. Dreams, fears, hopes, desires, memories--pretty much every type of mental activity gets tossed about like a load of clothes in the dryer. This can be a painstaking process to watch. Sometimes, it can bring about insight, and other times, you think someone filled your dryer with last weeks trash.

Either way, to endure the 1-hour at-home meditation, you have to just sit through it. Sit through the pain, the fears, and the dreams. Sit through the sleepiness. Sit through the anxiety, and the urge to get up and do anything else. It's all there, waiting for you on the cushion, and the choice is yours as to whether or not you are willing to see it, because chances are, you won't like everything you see.

So next time you think about meditation as some ultimate blissful journey through time and space, try it for an hour, and see if you can handle your own worst enemy, yourself. After all, there's no else there, but you.