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Mindfulness of Breathing (16) Clarifying Attitudes

Continuing with the practice of mindfulness of breathing, I've covered the first four steps of the sixteen. Rather than continuing today with that into the fifth step, I think it's good to emphasize the importance of caring for one's attitude in meditation. One of the inspirations for that today is to have an attitude of patience—to not succumb to any attitude of impatience, wanting more, being eager to go further, or wanting to somehow always feel like we're improving and getting more, learning more, learning something new.

There's something quite simple about mindfulness of breathing, and maybe even something humble. There's a lack of greed, or wanting more, or expectation of more. Instead, there's a willingness to just be ordinary and simple, to be on the ground floor, and to be a modest servant of the Dharma^[1], a modest servant of the practice. We give ourselves over to the practice the best we can, trusting the Dharma, trusting this process. Just be willing to offer the sincere way, or the best we can, and then trust that what will unfold will unfold accordingly. We don't have to be ahead of ourselves, looking ahead, or planning ahead. And so, with mindfulness of breathing, one of the first lessons for many people is patience—lots of patience.

It's also a little bit of a trick, I suppose, to say this, but it's completely true: it turns out that the fastest way to develop in meditation is to not be in a hurry. The fastest way to cultivate the receptivity, the openness, the calm, and the subtleness that really allows the practice to unfold and deepen is not to be too concerned about unfolding and deepening. It is to be more concerned about just being content to sit patiently, openly, with what we actually have in the moment. To have a continuity with breathing as if we're in it for the long term. As if our job is just to keep showing up and doing the best we can, and let the progress take care of itself.

Adjusting Our Attitude

What I'm talking about here is an attitude. A huge part of meditation is coming to terms with, understanding, and adjusting the attitude with which we meditate. One of the advantages of meditation is that there's something about sitting quietly, doing something as simple as being with the breathing, that makes us start seeing attitudes we have that are invisible in daily life. We don't really notice some of them because they're so subtle, or because they're so habituated they've become invisible to us, and certainly we don't see the subtlety of how it works.

So when we sit and meditate, we have this heightened sensitivity. Even the smallest movements toward attitudes that take us away or interfere with the deepening, the settling, and just being there in a simple, relaxed, patient way, start standing out and being highlighted.

Now, if a person has a tendency to be self-critical, when we sit in meditation, we can easily get much more material to use to criticize ourselves. If the mind wanders off a little bit too often, then, "I'm a wandering-off kind of person, and that's not so good." Or if I am aversive to what's happening, or if I'm too greedy and want something better, and I see that, then, "Oh, this is not a good Buddhist thing to be aversive and greedy, and now I'm an embarrassment to the Buddhist cause."

We're berating ourselves, and we start seeing these movements, these attitudes, these beliefs that come into play, and we can recognize them as such: "Oh, there's an attitude. There's an interpretation. There's a judgment." The attitude is more like the way in which we hold our experience, the disposition that we have, the way we feel, think, and respond. It's the manner by which we respond, the atmosphere with which we respond to things.

One attitude that I had in my early years of meditation was when I was sitting in meditation halls with other people, and I would compare myself to them. I had no idea what was going on in their meditation, but still, I had this attitude: the grass is greener elsewhere. I thought that over there, in that person, that really was supposed to be good meditation, and why am I not there? It was a silly attitude to have because I had no idea what was going on in them. It was just a belief that I carried with me. It was more than a belief because it came with a whole atmosphere of feeling sorry for myself, feeling discouraged, or feeling somehow left out of what was really the important thing that everyone else was experiencing. All these other attitudes and beliefs were coming in, and I'd get caught up in them.

One of the things that was really delightful was to appreciate that I didn't have to solve these things. I didn't have to berate myself or be too involved in fixing them. I could just trust my breathing. Just come back and stay with breathing, just stay and stay. When I did that, the energy of attention went to feed mindfulness of breathing, rather than feeding these attitudes. All too often we reinforce unhealthy attitudes—rumination, preoccupation, believing them, having them be the catalyst, the fuel for how we think about things. But just come back to breathing and trust the breathing. Be really simple.

I had this image: you're on your scooter, and you're pushing through, and maybe there's a place where there are cobblestones. It's a little bit rough to ride on, and it's not so comfortable, but you still just keep pushing and pushing, and soon enough you come out of the cobblestones, and then maybe the road is smooth again.

Five Helpful Attitudes

I wanted to offer you a few attitudes or orientations that you might find helpful for meditation.

Here's one, it's kind of a policy attitude, understanding that you can keep it close by: It's enough to clearly recognize what is happening. It is enough just to recognize what's happening in the present. Nothing needs to be fixed or changed, just recognize.

Another is patience with all that happens. It's good to have patience with whatever is happening. Being in a hurry is a form of greed.

There is nothing to prove or resist in meditation. Every occurrence is a time to learn something new about being peaceful. So whatever is happening, you don't have to resist it. You don't have to prove anything in relationship to it. You don't have to defend yourself, explain yourself, justify yourself, or berate yourself. It's just something new that you can learn about how to be peaceful, how not to be caught, and how to be non-agitated about this.

Another attitude is that you are a valuable person. Your well-being is important, and your capacity for attention is a treasure. No message that says you are less than beautiful is worth believing.

And finally, trust the awareness that flows out of stillness. Trust the awareness that flows out of calm, out of tranquility, out of stillness.

The Rhythm of Breathing

These five attitudes that I just recited have in common that they promote a calm, non-reactive attention, including a calm, non-reactive attention to our reactivity. This is kind of the sleight of hand, or the paradox, or for some people, the delight to their amusement. Of course, we're going to have reactivity. Of course, we're not going to be calm. But can we be calm and unreactive to that?

One way to do that is not to be too concerned about fixing things or trying to solve anything going on, but just come back and trust mindfulness of breathing. Just be with your breath. Feel that constancy, pushing the scooter of mindfulness, riding the wave of mindfulness wave after wave, waves of breathing.

If something is particularly strong and therefore compelling for your mind to pay attention to—like some strong physical sensations, maybe pain, maybe strong emotions, maybe a strong bout of thinking going on—one way to bring a certain degree of tranquility to that is to stay with your breathing so there's continuity and constancy. It's like breathing becomes the background beat, or the rhythm of your music that just keeps it going, the rhythm of your poem.

One way to do that is to breathe with what's compelling, breathe through it. Sometimes you really need to acknowledge what's happening. The full acknowledgment and mindfulness of what's compelling and challenging is really important. You can't just ignore it and push it aside, but you can possibly stay with the breathing, and then breathe through and breathe with.

One way to see this is to think of mindfulness of breathing as the center of your focus of attention. Anything else that needs some attending, you allow it to be in the peripheral vision of attention. It doesn't have to capture your attention; it just has to be known that it's there, and you just keep going. Just like you would on a scooter going through town. There are all kinds of things you have to keep attentive to—the traffic, people, and all that stuff—but they're a little more in the peripheral vision. At the center of vision is just keeping your eye on where you're going with that scooter.

Where you're going with the scooter of mindfulness of breathing is on a long or short journey that takes you to the next breath. That's all. One breath after the other. So enjoy your mindfulness of the breathing, and now we'll continue on this wonderful path that this breathing practice can take us. Thank you.