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Mindfulness of Breathing (18) Allowing for Pleasure

We have, in the practice of mindfulness of breathing, this ideal of having continuity of attention with the breathing. That can sometimes be developed, and that ability grows over time. It grows both because we are developing more capacity for concentration and a kind of commitment and stick-to-it-ness, but also we begin to lessen the forces of distraction. The muscles in the mind to be pulled, to get preoccupied in thought, and in desires, and aversions, and distractions of all kinds—that energy for doing that begins to lessen. And the more that lessens, the easier it is to stay with the breathing.

The energy of distraction, the energy of wandering off in thought—if you're really sensitive, you can feel there is a kind of tension in that, or pressure, or something that feels a little disconnecting, or can feel alienating even. Even though some of the things we think about might be pleasant and enjoyable, there's something about it which can feel a little bit off.

As we begin practicing continuity, or trying to be continuous with the breathing, one of the functions of that is to help us to see and notice how difficult it is to do so—how much the mind wanders off in thought. Rather than being upset with that and feeling like you're not succeeding with the ideal of staying focused, there's a phase of mindfulness practice where we actually have to take stock of what our mind is doing, what it's up to. We take stock both in its tendency to be distracted, and what it's like to be distracted, what it feels like. We kind of have to be mindful just of the experience of thinking a lot.

We start seeing some of the common themes of things that pull us away. One framework for understanding the common themes that makes them a little bit less specific—so we don't get pulled into the details of the particular concerns we have—is to see them as being the five hindrances^[1]. We see them: "Oh, that's desire. That's ill will or some kind of aversion. Oh, now the mind is just lethargic and dull and resistant. And now there's agitation in the mind, remorse, regrets, restlessness. And there's doubt."

So rather than saying, "Doubt about something," or "Agitated about something," or "Desiring something," it's just to recognize it in this general kind of way: "Oh, there's desire. There's aversion, lethargy or resistance, agitation, doubt." It's a way of creating a little bit of healthy distance. We're not so quickly and easily caught in the particular concern. It's just enough to say, "Oh, there it is."

Then we learn to recognize that and learn to relax, let go. Learn not to believe that that's where you need to be. Don't get invested in it, don't be seduced by it, but recognize: "Oh, there it is, my old friend. No need to be upset with yourself, you're doing this."

Part of the benefit of just recognizing it as a category—desire or aversion—is it's a little bit easier to maybe take it less personally. We're not so wrapped up in the personal details of the particular thing that we're distracted by. Because these forces, called the five hindrances, are seen in Buddhism as just being part of what humans do. In a way, you're born with them, and they just come along with being alive. They don't have to stay there; we don't have to be their victims, or just continue to be lost in them. But we don't have to think it's a personal failing that we do it. It just comes with being human, and we have to learn to work with it.

As it settles down, really clearly seeing even this label, "distraction" or "thinking," is enough to disconnect us from the specificity of the thing we're thinking about. It disconnects us from the content to the experience of just wandering in thought. It's a way of beginning to lessen the pull, or the energy that goes into it, quieting that energy, softening, so we can start staying more with the breathing.

By becoming familiar with what it's like to have a distracted mind, there can be a greater appreciation of what it's like to have a non-distracted mind. One of the delights in meditation practice is when we feel like, "Well, now we've settled in, and we're really here." There's a qualitatively different experience of really being here, clear, present, and awake. There is a sense of awareness being clear, with very little tendency to wander off. You just feel like, "Oh, this is a good place, like I'm home now."

Each person will experience it a little bit differently than maybe the words I just used, but will feel the goodness of being present. That gives birth to a certain kind of pleasure, or delight, or joy—the joy of the mind not under the control of distractions. It's kind of like we get to be ourselves; we've finally arrived here. We've gotten our mind back, as opposed to the mind constantly being lost and caught up in these other concerns.

Take some time to feel that pleasure, or delight, or joy of being able to now stay with the breathing in a more continuous way, to flow and be there, and be free of distractions. You are free of these pulls to all these thoughts that maybe are not so great to be in. It's better to be in the simple simplicity of the ease of just staying here with the breathing.

When we start doing this, we enter into a territory of meditation where we are getting close to feeling joy. The word in Pali is pīti^[2], p-i-t-i. Sometimes it's translated into English as pleasure, feeling the pleasure of meditation. Some people like to translate it as joy, the joy of meditation. It's very physical, so that's why people like to use the word pleasure for it.

It's interesting, when the Buddha, before he was enlightened, spent six or seven years as an ascetic doing all kinds of self-mortification practices, with certainly a lot of pain and challenges. It is said that he did this so thoroughly that he came right up to the edge of dying. He was emaciated and stumbling around, falling, and he realized that if he does one more little step of this ascetic practice, he would actually die.

He didn't think that was useful, so he then ate some food and got a little bit of his senses back. Then he reflected, and he remembered a time when he was young where he felt a kind of meditative pleasure, a meditative joy that was not dependent on sensual pleasures in the world. It wasn't sex, or food, or massages, or wonderful activities; it was something that welled up from inside. And then he said, "I don't have to be afraid of this." We don't have to be afraid of this kind of pleasure.

The strength of that statement is that these ascetics in ancient India thought that somehow sensual pleasure was just a trap and a dead end, and not helpful for the process of liberation. So they tended to dismiss all pleasures. The Buddha then came to realize: no, the problem is not with the pleasures. The problem is really with the attachments to them, the preoccupation with them.

There is a kind of pleasure which we don't have to be afraid of, and one reason we don't have to be afraid of it is that we're not causing any harm in the world. We're not breaking precepts^[3], we're not consuming things in the world, using them up or something like that. There's a blameless pleasure that can well up from inside when we sit and get focused and concentrated here.

As we do so and feel the delight or the pleasure of just being present, we can begin tuning in to what the Buddha called blameless pleasure, or this simple delight of being present. We can then use that pleasure, that joy, or that sense of well-being as a biofeedback system that encourages us to stay with the breathing, to stay in the present moment.

After a while, there starts to be a kind of feedback loop that builds up. Staying with the breath, massaging the breath, stroking the breath—it feels like very gently, very slowly, it's kind of reinforcing the clarity, or the pleasure, or the joy. It just feels good. I know some people talk about something that starts feeling beautiful in the body. It becomes a beautiful feeling that begins to kind of radiate or glow—I like the word glow a little bit—someplace in the body. If we stop focusing on the breath, that glow or that beauty kind of recedes and disappears.

It's very important—very useful—to start allowing ourselves to feel the pleasure of meditation when it's there, but to do it carefully. We are not to do it to indulge in it, not to linger and savor it, but to do it as a way to continue to open to the present moment. It's almost like that pleasure is like the warmth of the sun that allows the body to relax, a body that's been cold and tight.

So this opening and this receptivity is allowing it to be there, not the kind of, "Oh, it feels so good," and really savoring it. Allow it to be there and use it to open—in particular to open even more to the breathing. Allow the continuity, and really focus on the breathing and let it settle in.

It's very useful to do so, but it's very important to do it without denying or pushing away that many times we don't have pleasure. Many times there is pain, there is discomfort, there are difficult emotions and difficult states of mind that we're in. We don't want to deny that or somehow override it and do a spiritual bypass, but there's a wonderful art of including both together.

Once we get a sense of the feelings of well-being that can exist, they can coexist with some of the distress we have. Some of the challenges we have in life are increased by the way the mind fixates on them, the way we zero in on them and take them as being the thing of the moment, the most important thing, and get caught by it. This breath meditation begins to soften that fixation around certain themes and ideas. They don't necessarily go away, but as the fixation softens, we start feeling a wider context of our lives. This wider goodness and pleasure, this whole kind of feeling of wholeness, holds the particular challenge we have.

So there is pleasure and joy that we do not have to fear. As meditation deepens, from time to time we'll feel that, and it can be very subtle at first. The art of meditation can be to allow ourselves to feel that as a way of supporting us to stay in the present moment. It's like a little cheerleader support: "Stay there, be with us." It's a lot easier for the mind to stay present with experience if the mind feels that it's a pleasant place to be, an enjoyable place to be.

Reflections

You might begin to get curious in your daily life and in your meditation. Maybe sit a little bit extra these days, meditate extra, and be curious about senses of well-being, good feelings you might have within. Where are they? How are they? Where do you feel it? When do you feel something that's pleasure and well-being that's not directly related to what's happening around you? It's just so good to just be present, settled, and content, just to be here for no good reason—just sitting here, being here.

If you're at all inclined to meditate more this week, it might give you more opportunities to explore this territory of pleasure. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy yourself with all this.