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Guided Meditation: Breath in Different Places

Hello greetings friends, greetings, hello wherever you are in the world. Lovely to be with you in this moment and to practice together. It's so lovely to see all the hellos and greetings, all these expressions of metta^[1] people are expressing from around the world. It's very sweet, warms my heart this morning here.

I'm Nikki Mirghafori in Mountain View, California on unceded Ohlone^[2] land, a few miles away from IMC^[3]—the virtual background of IMC, so we feel we're at home.

So today, speaking of being at home, we continue our exploration of the mind's body. Not just the body as we take it to be, this fathom-long body, but the mind's body. The way that this physicality, this experience of having a physicality in the world or a perception of a body, is impacted by the way we pay attention, and vice versa. The way this mind's body or energy body supports our awakening.

Especially if you tend to always do the same thing, or pay attention the same way to your breath or your body, these sessions are especially for you to explore, to open up different pathways, different ways, different impacts. Today in the guided meditation, I will invite us to explore the impact of attending to the breath, being mindful of the breath in different places. We will explore the difference between paying attention to the breath in the abdomen, the chest, the nostrils, and the whole body. These all have different impacts, and at different times different practitioners would be invited to explore them.

Let's explore together. All you need is a sense of interest, curiosity for your own mind-body laboratory. So here we go.

Let us settle, let us arrive. Finding our seat first and foremost. Feeling our sit bones. Feeling ourselves connected to the earth.

Sensing, feeling your feet on the earth. Your legs. Your bottom on the cushion, lower legs. Let them land, let them be released. Connected to the earth. A stable base.

Turning your attention, your awareness intentionally to the sensations of contact. Filling out your legs, your feet, your sit bones, your bottom.

Relaxing the upper body, releasing the upper body. The jaw, forehead. Neck and shoulders. Chest, abdomen, arms, and hands.

And noticing, noting, turning the awareness fully, wholeheartedly to the lower abdomen to receive the breath. The breath is being breathed on its own. So no need to make it into a project. You don't have to breathe intentionally. It's already happening.

So all the doing that we do, if there is any doing, is to receive. Is to receive with our awareness the breath in the abdomen. It's just turning, adverting our attention.

A gift is given every moment, this breath. This gift that keeps us alive is air, it's oxygen. Receive it, receive it wholeheartedly. The lower part of the abdomen. Let it ground you. Let it be enjoyable.

This knowing of the breath here, this part of the body filled out, full, billowing. Notice something about attending to the breath, receiving the breath in the abdomen. How it manifests in the body. What happens in the heart and the mind that you may have never noticed before. Be interested in this laboratory.

Make sure you're relaxed. Now with the same ease in the body, feeling relaxed, releasing thoughts, muscles. Now turning attention, awareness to receive the breath in the chest area. As if the breath was being received from your heart center, the middle of your chest, entering and exiting. Awakening your heart this moment in time with each breath. Giving, receiving to the world. Perhaps your good wishes, your kindness.

Notice how different it may feel to receive the breath in the chest, the heart center, compared to the abdomen. Is there something different about your state of mind now, the state of your body overall?

And now receiving the breath at the nostrils. Not inside the nostrils, but outside the nostrils at the upper lip. Noticing the coolness of the air, the warmth. It could be more subtle. Let the body remain relaxed.

Noticing the breath outside the nose at the upper lip could be quite subtle. See how the mind, the body adapts. Notice. Do you notice any differences in the state of mind and the body receiving the breath at the nostrils? Do you find yourself more distracted perhaps, or not? Or thoughts arising, or perhaps more concentrated. See the difference.

And letting go of attending to the breath at the nostrils. Settling into the whole body, whole body filled out. The entire body. Especially if you were practicing yesterday, the outline of the whole body. The whole body filled out, sitting whatever your posture is in this moment. Head, shoulders, arms, trunk. Sit bones, legs, feet. Entire body.

Breathing as if you're breathing through all your pores. This whole body billowing. As if the body itself was breathing through the pores. Not effortful, it's happening on its own. Just bring your attention, awareness to it.

Perhaps even considering that your body extends just a tiny bit beyond the border of your skin, and the breath moves through in and out with ease, porously. Settling into the whole body breathing. Imagine the whole body billowing. Being breathed. Your hands are breathing, your back is breathing.

And as we bring this period of sitting to a close, dedicating, sharing our goodness, our cultivation, our engagement, our energy, our effort. As individuals and a community. Offering our collective cultivation to all beings everywhere, including ourselves.

May our cultivation, our knowing, our awakening, walking on the path towards awakening, may it serve, may it be of service. Not just to ourselves but to everyone, those we know, those we don't know. May all beings everywhere be happy. May all beings everywhere be free, including ourselves.

Thank you for your practice.

Dharmette: Mind's Body (2/5) Energetic Impact of Different Breath Locations

Hello, greetings dear sangha^[4]. Lovely to be practicing with you.

As we are exploring the mind's body this week, this particular invitation today in the guided meditation was to explore the impact of attending to the breath—turning awareness to receive the breath either in the abdomen, the chest, the nostrils, or the whole body. There are more ways to attend to the breath, but given limited time, we started here.

Recently I was talking with a dedicated practitioner who has practiced for many years—decades, actually—and has sat multiple three-month retreats at IMS^[5]. We got to talk about the breath, and I started to share about the different impacts that attending to the breath in different places has. They said, "I had no idea. No one has ever shared this with me before. Why don't other dharma teachers ever talk about this?"

I thought, Ah, this is important to talk about. I am also appreciating seeing the comments about how breathing into different areas is really shifting the energetic feelings for people, and how you're exploring and seeing that. That's wonderful, it makes me very happy to see.

A couple of things: Dharma teachers may or may not have shared this; I may have heard it through my own practice from one person or another, but it's also something that I've experienced and discovered on my own. But this is part of the canon. Knowing how to work with the breath can support where you are in your practice, can support your energetic feeling, and can support you with hindrances. So let's dive in.

Let's start with the abdomen. There is a sense of ease, a relaxed receiving of the breath. Again, not intentionally breathing yourself, because that could become very tight. It can become like a chore—I'm breathing—but the breathing is already happening on its own. The abdomen, especially the lower abdomen, is where Mahasi Sayadaw^[6] directed attention. He was a prominent teacher in the Theravada tradition in Burma and a teacher to many of those who came to the West and brought vipassana^[7] to the West about fifty years ago.

Attending to the breath in the abdomen can result in the mind feeling settled and grounded. It can be perhaps one of the most grounding places to attend to the breath. Especially if you are a practitioner who tends to be very heady in your work and in your life—if you tend to think a lot—then bringing the center of gravity of your attention down in your physical body to your abdomen can be really grounding.

The image to have is like a helium balloon. If you have a helium balloon that is light and just wants to get away, you put a weight on the bottom of it and you put it on the earth. So, put a weight on your helium balloon of thoughts that want to go here, there, and everywhere. If you notice there are a lot of thoughts, bring the attention down, down, down to your abdomen.

The abdomen is generally the best place for beginning practitioners. Even if you're an experienced practitioner, the abdomen tends to be a one-size-fits-all that has many advantages. There's also a grossness to the sensations of rise and fall that gives the mind something to grab onto. All the sensations on the sides of the belly, on the top of the ridges—there are so many sensations everywhere. That can really ground and settle the mind. The mind's body can be really comforted, soothed, and settled by paying attention to the breath in the abdomen.

Especially if there is the hindrance of agitation, restlessness, or worry, bring the energy down to the lower abdomen. Sense the breath there and it will calm, it will soothe, it will settle, it will ground. Sometimes even sensing the breath really low at your sit bones can be helpful.

The chest can also have different impacts and ways of the energy moving or shifting. Sometimes feeling that the breath is entering directly into the heart center and exiting the heart center can open the heart. It can have a metta quality, a loving-kindness. Especially if you're practicing metta, this heart-center breathing can be just so lovely. You can synchronize your metta with it, even if there are no phrases. Just this feeling of kindness breathing through your heart for the whole world and for yourself can bring a profound sense of calming and soothing.

The chest, however, can bring up some anxiety. If you're experiencing anxiety, restlessness, or worry, it can bring the energy up a little bit in your chest. Knowing that, you can bring it down to the abdomen if that happens. All of these places have a right time to be utilized, and times when they are not helpful.

The nostrils can be very subtle. I do not recommend the nostrils for any beginner or even intermediate practitioners. Thanks for exploring it this morning, so if you're new, it's okay! The beauty of the nostrils is that the breath can be so subtle here that the mind can really get concentrated. But this is usually only after you've had many years or even decades of practice, and really know your way around the energy bodies and concentration practices.

The challenge—and please, never go inside the nostrils. Do not feel the breath inside the nostrils. That's a bad habit, do not do it. It can cause a lot of problems down the road with practice. Outside here, below the nose and over the upper lip, this is called the anapana^[8] spot, the mindfulness of breathing spot.

The disadvantage of the anapana spot is that it is very subtle. It's so subtle that you might not feel it at all, you lose it, and you become really tight asking, Where is that breath? You become so tight that you trip over your own shoelaces in practice, which is not helpful. It can also bring a lot of energy to the head area, so one can be distracted a lot more easily. But practicing at the nostrils is how my teacher, Pa Auk Sayadaw^[9], points to the deeper levels of jhānas^[10]. But again, this comes after a lot of experience on the path.

As I mentioned, the abdomen is generally a wonderful place to go. But if you're feeling a little sleepy—if you're experiencing sloth and torpor^[11] and feeling very sleepy—then it might be helpful to actually pay attention to the breath in the chest or at the nostrils just to bring the energy up and wake you up. It can uplift the energy body instead of being settled and down. So if you're feeling sleepy, it's okay to feel the breath further up for some time.

The whole-body breath, the whole-body breathing which we tried very briefly, can again be very comforting, soothing, and grounding. This whole sense of the energy body can feel spacious. It can feel confined in a good way—a sense of security, here I am in a cocoon, I am being breathed—and it can also feel very spacious. Five minutes is just not enough time for each of these stops; it's like a whirlwind tour of our breath. I would recommend trying all of these for longer periods of time on your own and really exploring in your own energy body how it shifts.

There's so much to share with you about the mind's body. I knew this was going to come up because there are lots of chats and questions. The one that I see is: Why is sensing inside the nostrils not good? If you just practice a little bit here and there inside the nostrils, it's not going to impact you. But if you go on a retreat or if you practice a lot, the earth element—the sense of solidity—arises inside the nostrils, inside the head. If you do it over and over for a long time, especially on a retreat, then it feels like there are bricks in your nose and in your head, and it can completely mess you up. I've known practitioners where this has happened. You forget how to breathe, you can't even breathe, it gets tight and can become very painful. So do not develop these bad habits that later you have to undo.

So much in this mind's body to explore and share. I hope this is supportive to your practice, knowing how to shift and change if there's sleepiness, anxiety, or a need for grounding or subtlety. There's a lot more to share. I look forward to practicing with you for the rest of the week. Take good care, be well.