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Guided Meditation: Breathing With Experience

Good morning, and greetings to you here in California and around the world. I am happy to be spending these thirty minutes with meditation.

The theme for this week is mindfulness of breathing. Breathing can be very helpful to keep us from getting caught in whatever is happening, to keep us from latching on, holding on, resisting, or fighting.

The analogy for this would be if you were going down a river—perhaps a river that has some rapids and whirlpools—but you had a large enough, stable enough boat that could float right over the rapids and right through the whirlpools and eddies. As long as you stay in the boat, you are just carried down the river. But if you decide to jump out of the boat to hold on to one of the rapids, to fight one of the rapids, or to be afraid of one of the rapids because you freeze in some way, then you're not going to float down the river. You will get caught and stuck someplace along the river.

Breathing is kind of like the boat, and life is a river. Your experience as you're meditating is constantly changing, moving, and flowing. Unless we get out of the boat to resist what's happening, fight what's happening, judge what's happening, make stories about what's happening, or hold on to what's happening—all these things that stop the boat—staying with the breathing keeps us in the boat.

One of the ways of doing that, a way that is respectful of the rapids, whirlpools, and all the things that go on, is the idea that we can breathe with other experiences. We can breathe with the physical discomforts of our body. We can breathe with the pleasures that happen as we meditate. We can breathe with whatever emotions are going on. We can even breathe with the mind caught up in its thinking.

The idea of "breathing with" means that we are centered in ourselves. We stay in the boat. We stay with the breathing and remain really connected to the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out. But we're also cognizant of the other things. We're not ignoring them, fighting them, or resisting them; they are included in the awareness. It is almost like we're breathing through those things, or the breathing is accompanying those things, partnering with them.

But the breathing is where we stay, like staying in a boat. We let everything else have its place in the water. We let everything else have a place as it flows by, and we don't stop for it. We don't have to react to it, judge it, or make anything big about it.

One of the great teachings I received was the idea of not being bothered by anything as I meditate. Just keep the gentle, relaxed continuity with the breathing. Other things will come up, but stay with the breathing and breathe with those things. Breathe through those things, breathe around those things, breathe next to those things, but stay in the boat. By breathing with all the things that arise and pass, we stay freer from them. This idea of staying free of the things that are there is one of the supports that breathing with can provide, so we can breathe free.

Guided Practice

Take your meditation posture and gently close your eyes.

Perhaps, if it's easy enough, take a few moments to appreciate yourself. Have friendly thoughts, kind regard, and words of appreciation for yourself. Perhaps you aspire to be your own best friend. What would be the kind things you could say and feel towards yourself at this particular point?

Take these gentle, larger breaths as a way of settling into the appreciation and friendliness that you might have, no matter how small. Breathing in deeply and exhaling, may it be so.

Breathing in deeply, feeling the stretching of any holding and resistance in the breathing. Have a gentle, maybe loving attention to the ways in which breathing is limited, if it is.

Perhaps breathe out a little longer than usual. Slower and longer is a way of settling into your body. Settling into the body breathing.

Then, let your breathing return to normal. You might experiment with "breathing with" for a few minutes as we go through and relax the body.

Maybe breathing with the belly, and any tension or holding there might be in the belly. Feeling the movement of expansion and contraction in the belly around, next to, or with any holding tension. Relaxing the belly.

Perhaps breathing with any tension there might be in the shoulders. At first, not relaxing it, just breathing with it. Feeling the subtle movements in the shoulders that might be there as you're breathing—a lifting and a falling, the stretching as you breathe in, perhaps close to the shoulders. Inhaling and exhaling, then relaxing the shoulders, softening.

Perhaps there's tension in your face. It is completely okay for that to be the case, but breathe with it. Be aware of both breathing and the tensions of your face. Maybe imagine that you're breathing through the face, through the tensions. And as you exhale, softening in the face.

Then it might be possible to take a global awareness of the body. Some people do what's called "whole-body breathing"—as wide and globally as breathing is experienced in the body. The movements of the body, the energetics of breathing, and the movements associated with breathing. Let any discomfort or tension held somewhere in the body be included in that global breathing. Breathing through the tension, with the tension, and as you exhale, maybe you can soften a bit whatever tension is there.

Settle into that part of the breathing—wherever in the body the breathing is most compelling and easiest to attend to.

Stay with your breathing. Let go of your thoughts.

Remember that as long as you are with the breathing, it can keep you free. You won't get caught if you don't jump out of your boat. Just like a boat accompanies and goes by the rapids and the eddies that might be coming along the river, breathe through and breathe with whatever is happening for you. Don't stop for anything. Just stay with the breathing and breathe through it.

Breathe with whatever emotions are strong. Whatever sensations are strong. Whatever is happening in your mind. Don't make anything a problem; it is just something to breathe with. Breathe through.

Kindly, friendly, loving. Not bothered by anything. Held by the rhythm of breathing. One breath at a time.

One of the ways that we get out of the boat is we get involved in thinking. Stay awake enough to notice if you start thinking, and keep breathing. Be with your breathing. Let go of your thoughts, or if you can't let go of them, breathe with them. Stay grounded in your breathing in spite of your thoughts. Breathe through^[1] the thinking mind.

Bringing the Practice into Daily Life

By learning to breathe with things, to breathe with what's happening, the breathing can help keep us free from being stuck or caught, free from being tense.

This is a wonderful thing to bring into our daily lives—in our conversations with others, in working with others, in having difficulties with others, and in caring for others. There are so many big and small ways in which the mind, the body, and the emotions get activated in ways that make us tense. We hold on, we freeze.

But to learn how to keep close to the breathing and have our breathing accompany all things... breathe with all things.

May it be that our ability to stay free is supported by this simplicity of breathing, this attention to breathing. So that as we accompany the world, whatever is happening in the world, the breathing helps us to have at least a minimal degree of freedom, of non-caughtness. So that we can be a greater agent of peace, of friendliness, of kind presence, of a relaxed presence.

May it be that our meditation practice, our mindfulness practice, helps us contribute to the welfare and happiness of the world. May our practice clearly be understood to benefit the world as much as it benefits ourselves.

May all beings, including ourselves, be happy. May all beings be healthy and breathe fresh air. May all beings be healthy and be protected from the dangers to our health. May all beings be free and not have to live under conditions of oppression. May all beings be at peace.