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Guided Meditation (73) Confidence

So, a warm hello to all of you, and welcome to our meditation together.

One of the qualities that this whole series of practices on anapanasati^[1]—this mindfulness of breathing—and probably all forms of Buddhist practice aim for, is to have confidence in the practice. To have tremendous confidence that it's really worthwhile to just settle in, to do the meditation, to do the mindfulness, to do the dharma practice in all its different forms. For people who have practiced for a long time, that confidence is said to become unshakable.

Practice with confidence regardless of whether you feel like you've never meditated before—like a raw beginner—or if you feel like, "Wow, I'm really meditating well today." From the point of view of confidence, it doesn't really matter whether you're a beginner or an experienced practitioner, or whether you feel like you are stumbling along one day and cruising along the next. What matters most is that you have confidence in the practice. You settle down and do it day in and day out, through the ups and the downs. There's real confidence that this is worthwhile, that this has great meaning and purpose and is a homecoming.

Enter into a meditation posture and gently close your eyes. Spend a little bit of time exploring your body and your posture to see if you can make small adjustments so the posture is a confident posture. Even if you don't feel confident, can you assume a confident posture? For some people, that's sitting up a little bit straighter or feeling a little bit more grounded. Maybe it's having the chest a little bit more open and expansive.

And then, as you exhale, relax your body. Relax the muscles of your face, softening and releasing the shoulders. Maybe there's a release that can happen in the heart area. Maybe there's a softening in the belly, releasing any holding in the belly.

Then, look around your body and see if you can find some part of your body that you associate with confidence. Maybe there's a feeling of confidence that's available now, or simply a place that, if you were to be confident, that's where it lives for you. For some people, it's the hands or the feet. Some people feel it in the belly or the chest. For some people, it's just a broad feeling throughout the torso. Where does confidence live in you?

Perhaps in reference to this location for confidence, maybe in reference to whatever confidence you have—however small it might be—begin breathing together with confidence. Breathing with your confidence, being confident with your breathing.

Perhaps have some confidence in the practice of mindfulness of breathing, where the confidence is in the practice, not in what you're experiencing. There is no need to look for validation, or to feel you are doing it right, or experiencing some particular state. What's important is the simple continuity of the practice, one breath after the other.

No need to strain or push. Be confident in an open-handed mindfulness, a relaxed, receptive awareness, with a confidence that you're always ready to begin again with your breathing. A confidence where it doesn't matter so much that you wandered off in thought; it only matters that you begin again and again.

Have a confidence of hanging in there, one breath after the other. That's all you need to do now for this meditation: gently, lovingly, continuously. Be confident in the simplicity of practicing mindfulness, awareness of the body breathing.

And then, as we come to the end of this sitting, we evoke again the idea of confidence. Confidence can be a strength that we bring to the important things of our life. One of the important things is our care for the world around us: our generosity, our goodwill, our compassion, our love. We need to have enough confidence in these things that we bring forth our care, our compassion, and our love, even when it's difficult. Have enough confidence that we don't get distracted from it easily, thinking that other things are more important.

Be confident in our capacity to look upon others and look upon the world with kindness, friendliness, and goodwill. Perhaps there's a way that meditating clarifies what is important, so that we let go of some of the things that are not so useful to have at the center of our preoccupation and concern. So there's room for compassion.

May it be that our practice of meditation supports us in being able to walk through this world confidently. Confident in our kindness, our care, our compassion. Confident in the value of friendliness. May it be that this practice we do supports the welfare and happiness of all beings everywhere. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings everywhere be free.

Mindfulness of Breathing (73) Practice with Confidence

So my friends, we come to the end of this series of talks on mindfulness of breathing, relying on the classic teachings on this practice given by the Buddha a long time ago. The heart of it is the sixteen steps of mindfulness of breathing^[2], and the instructions go on beyond those sixteen steps to describe the process by which mindfulness of breathing leads to full awakening. I had a Zen teacher I practiced with in Japan who said that all of Buddhism can be revealed through mindfulness of breathing, focusing on the breathing.

From all the best records we have of what meditation practice the Buddha himself did, he explained he did mindfulness of breathing. He would sometimes, as a fully awakened being, go off into the forest for two weeks or four weeks at a time to be on retreat. Before he went or after he came back, he would explain that what he was doing was practicing mindfulness of breathing. So it isn't only a practice to bring us to awakening or enlightenment; it's also a practice to do after enlightenment.

Maybe enlightenment is just a confirmation of the practice, that now we really know this is what the practice is: the practice is good, it works. There's a very clear confidence in the practice itself. Certainly, Buddhist practice can be more than mindfulness of breathing, but having confidence in the practice you do is one of the signs of maturing and developing in meditation. Rather than measuring success by states of meditation, states of concentration, calm, or insight—and I don't want to dismiss the value of those—more important is this unshakable confidence that this practice is worth doing. Really trusting it.

One of the great gifts that mindfulness practice has given to me is a real trust in just being mindful, in the practice of showing up and being aware of what's happening now. There are certainly plenty of times that I run into difficult situations where I don't quite know how to find my way through and understand what's happening, but I trust even those situations to be mindful. There's a sense of direction, purpose, grounding, orientation, and safety. I don't get swept up in the drama of the moment or the anxieties of the situation, perhaps because I have this deep trust that things will work out when there's a strong mindfulness. I just come back to it and practice. Now, it doesn't mean I am only mindful, but mindfulness then reveals the way forward sooner or later. I don't seem to go wrong by pausing, stopping to look and be present, and seeing what's really going on here, what's happening in me, and what's happening outside. I don't go wrong by coming back and just breathing.

Some of you have done yoga classes where a common instruction from the yoga teacher is, "You're holding your breath, don't hold your breath." Sometimes the straining of doing a posture makes people hold their breath, and yoga teachers want you to keep a relaxed, loose breath as you go. That's really good advice for all of life. One of the possibilities of mindfulness of breathing practice is that it becomes second nature to be aware of your breathing. You notice how you're breathing, where the breathing is constricted or held, and come back to a relaxed breath. Fluid, easeful breathing makes a huge difference because it reorients or resets the psychology, the emotionality, the mind itself. When the breathing is relaxed, it's actually harder to cling, grasp, or contract around things. It's a little bit of a protection. I think of it as a lubricant for the mind and heart, keeping it fluid and moving, and not rusted.

The wonderful rhythm of breathing in and out is a protection from getting caught up and fixated on our preoccupations, our concerns, and our fears. If we're not fixated, we often get a more realistic understanding, a bigger and better view of what's going on, than if we get caught up in the middle of our preoccupations. So mindfulness of breathing is always useful.

I think some people don't find it to be their favorite or most effective practice, and there are other wonderful practices to do. But over these weeks that we've been doing mindfulness of breathing, I want to emphasize that it is a wonderful practice for many, many people. As we sink into it, develop it, and grow in it, one of the primary qualities that eventually arises is a real confidence in it. A real confidence in practice where we just do it, day in and day out.

My reading of the classic instructions of the sixteen steps is that most of those steps feature the expression, "I will train, breathing in; I will train, breathing out." In the midst of everything, whatever is going on in the sixteen steps, I train to breathe in; I train to breathe out. This intentionality, this dedication, this love of just breathing in the middle of it, no matter what. Nothing is worth getting so caught up in that we can't just stay floating on the river of breathing. We can stay with the lubricant, the ease, and the relaxation that mindfulness of breathing can provide.

It makes life so much easier. In Buddhist terminology, it helps to create a life that's freer, more liberated, more easeful, and more open, which is then available for more wisdom to see clearly what's here. We have this amazing capacity for wisdom, insight, and seeing that can come in the wake of relaxed, open, subtle experience with breathing in and breathing out.

I think this is maybe the 72nd session we've had on mindfulness of breathing, and we've done it since the beginning of the year. It's quite a journey. I hope that this has been meaningful and supportive for you, opening up or pointing to the value and richness that can come with mindfulness of breathing. The topics of the sixteen steps are relevant for other forms of meditation practice as well. I hope it has given you new perspectives on yourself, pointed to dimensions of your inner life that you haven't really thought about or focused on before, and supported you in your development.

Thank you for letting me share all of this over these months. I would say that mindfulness of breathing is my primary practice for meditation and going around daily life. I've been doing it since I was probably twenty years old, so for decades, and I find it still to this day a fantastic, wonderful practice. It's not the only practice I do, because mindfulness includes everything—it's part of the beauty of mindfulness to be all-inclusive—but breathing is at the center of it all, and it's a wonderful center.

So thank you, and we'll continue on Monday with a new topic. I haven't decided quite what we're going to do. There's a small chance that on Monday I'll be in a different location with Wi-Fi that's a little bit weak or slow, so we'll see how this goes. There's a fifty-fifty chance I'll be here or in this other location, but we'll do some topic next week that feels a little bit like a follow-up to this whole series. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and thank you for the opportunity to give this series.