This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Mindfulness of Breathing (17) Fifth Step: Well-being

Continuing on this teaching on the Buddha's instructions for mindfulness of breathing, we now begin moving into what's called the second tetrad, the second group of four steps to this practice. It clearly builds on the earlier steps. Whereas the first tetrad is very much about the body—really being rooted and centered in your body—the second is about becoming more attuned to some of the feelings we have as we sit and meditate.

So, not just the sensations of the body, but also what in English we can call feelings. Not quite emotions, but certainly inclusive of emotions. In particular, you start becoming aware of the pleasant sensations, pleasant feelings, and feelings of well-being that can well up. You have to be very careful about this. We're not expected every time we sit down to meditate to have feelings of well-being, to have feelings of joy and happiness. It's unrealistic.

The first steps of Anapanasati^[1] can be the foundation. I've benefited so much from times when I haven't felt very happy and maybe felt very challenged by something in my life, and upset or disturbed in some way, where I'll just be very content to sit and breathe with it. Just sit and breathe and let that natural settling and connecting to the body happen. I just love composting the difficult emotions I have in my body.

What that means is to feel the difficulty, to recognize what I'm feeling is difficult, and then feel how it is in the body. If there's anger, feel how it's expressed. If it's sadness, how it's expressed in the body. Come back and just let the body compost it. Let the body feel it and process it. It's a way of getting out of the way, in the sense that if I'm in my thoughts and stories, I'm just churning, spinning, and reinforcing it. But allowing the body—the body is not just a physical body. The body is intimately connected to the mind, the heart, and how things get processed. We have amazing processing capacity if we allow it to. So just feel the difficulty. Just breathe with it, be with it, and feel it. Breathe, breathe, nothing more.

At times, there won't be any particularly difficult emotions or painful sensations; the knees might not hurt anymore and we're just sitting here. At some point, when we're soft enough, relaxed enough, centered enough, and in the present moment enough, we start feeling well-being. That's when this second tetrad kicks in. We only start becoming aware of this next tetrad when we start feeling some beginnings of good feelings in the body. They can be a variety. They can be good feelings of calm and settledness, good feelings of feeling holistic, present, and all-inclusive. There might be feelings of joy, delight, and happiness that well up from the inside.

Sometimes this can become quite strong. Some people will use the word "ecstasy" when they're strong, but it's probably not the best word. Some people have pointed out that ecstasy means being outside of oneself. Whereas in Buddhist meditation, it's more of an intimacy. It's more like being in ourselves. It's something that wells up from the inside, and we're really present.

That's why the first tetrad is to really be grounded and rooted here, doing that over and over again so it's second nature. It's being really comfortable and at ease here in this body. We're preparing the body to be the receptacle for a meditative well-being that is physical in nature and wells up from the inside.

This idea of welling up from the inside is captured in a metaphor the Buddha uses for this. That is a lake—a mountain lake maybe—that has no streams bringing water into it, and there's no rain bringing water into it. Rather, there is an underwater spring, a fount that flows water into the lake. That's where the lake gets refreshed: from this underground spring that's within the lake, at the bottom of the lake, flowing up from the inside out. So there isn't water coming from the outside, in a sense.

This is a sense of well-being that is not dependent on getting what you want in life, like winning the lottery, getting a nice present, having a nice experience, having some tasty food, or the weather being just right. For many people, happiness comes from success and getting what they want in the world. In meditation, we give up wanting and depending on getting what we want in the world for our happiness. There's a settling, relaxing, and deepening here. Rather than getting something external that makes us happy, or some reward system where we get something and therefore feel happy, there's a very different kind of well-being that begins welling up from the inside out that has nothing to do with getting anything. There could be a wish to feel that, which we kind of get our wish then, but it's something internal. It's not dependent on anything in the world being just right or being any particular way.

It's very empowering and relieving to experience this, because then we have access to a sense of happiness, well-being, contentment, calm, and just feeling good in ourselves that doesn't require anything from the world around us. In fact, sometimes we sit and meditate and there might be uncomfortable sounds or things happening in the environment, but we're no longer connected to that or concerned with that. It makes space for this inner thing to begin welling up. It certainly requires letting go of a lot of thinking about the world, thinking about what we want and don't want, and navigating the whole world of stories and ideas, because all of those express a kind of dependency on the world being a particular way.

Of course, we should correct the world, fix the world, clean up the world, and take care of the world at times. But it's okay not to do that while we're meditating. Meditating is a time when we can put all that aside so that we can let the yeast of meditation begin to bubble, percolate, expand, and grow.

The first tetrad is making ourselves a receptacle that can receive and allow. When feelings of well-being arise, the instructions are to experience that well-being. The particular word for the fifth step is joy. But sometimes joy is a little bit too high a bar or a particular word that people struggle with, asking, "Where do I feel that joy, or what is it?" So I prefer the word well-being initially. A sense of good calm can be a sense of well-being. A sense of appreciation and valuing what we are, a sense of coziness, a sense of intimacy, a sense of being present here.

This sense of well-being can be there for a number of reasons, but in the practice of Anapanasati, the particular kind of well-being that becomes more salient is the one that comes with a certain concentration on the breathing. A certain intimacy with the breath, a certain rapport with the breathing. And it isn't the breathing itself. People wonder, "Why should I stick with the breathing? Breathing is a boring thing." Breathing is not just a physical thing. It's something that is intimately connected to the mind, the heart, and the emotional patterns that we have. It's a very rich nexus where all these different crossroads of our inner life meet at the breathing.

One of the things that happens as we get closer and closer to just cruising with the breath, riding the waves of the breath, and staying connected to breathing, is we start getting concentrated. That concentration begins shifting the nature of the breathing and the feeling sensations there. There's an intermingling; there's a way in which the well-being of being concentrated infuses the breath with a certain kind of well-being or pleasure. And that pleasure encourages the mind, cultivating it to be more focused on breathing. It's a little bit like the analogy I like to use of stroking a cat. As long as you're stroking the cat, the cat purrs, but if you take your hand away, it stops purring.

As long as we stay connected to the breathing in a concentrated, relaxed, soft, and melting way, just breathing in and breathing out, at some point—and it might be further down the line—a biofeedback system starts to be in place. The very way in which we're concentrating, staying grounded, stroking the breath, or being stroked by the breath starts to give birth to a certain kind of well-being.

It's very important, so I'll say it again: don't be in a hurry for this to happen. Be content with the first tetrad. But when it does happen, recognize it. In the Buddha's instructions, at this point, you're allowed to feel well-being. You're taught to feel the joy, delight, or goodness that comes. There might be a lot of other feelings. There might be feelings of pain and discomfort, and even a little bit of emotional discomfort. But there's a more encompassing, inclusive awareness that comes along with a sense of contentment, calmness, joy, or appreciation that holds all that.

We're beginning to get a sense of a presence, attention, and well-being that's not dependent on the details of our life. It is revolutionary to begin to realize you can feel sad, angry, or in pain, and still have a sense of well-being that's bigger than that. It begins shifting the focus and preoccupation away from the details of this anger, this resentment, or this desire as being the locus and what we have to focus on. We start letting those things be, and begin to focus on something more encompassing: a calmness, an ease, a joy, a delight.

It's possible that you don't quite understand what I'm saying, and that's okay. Don't be too concerned about it. Over these next days, we'll begin easing into this area of the second tetrad^[2]. Maybe you'll have an intuition or use your imagination to follow along, or maybe you'll have some experience in your life that you can relate to what we're talking about. You'll learn these steps, and over time, you'll learn when they're relevant for you and when you can flow along with them. In the right time, you can move into this on your own.

Over the next days, we'll look at well-being, joy, and happiness in meditation. I'm certainly happy and delighted to share this with you. Hopefully, a little bit of my joy will be contagious and support you as we go into these next steps of mindfulness of breathing. Thank you.