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Introduction

Warm hellos from Redwood City. I appreciate all the good mornings and the warmth that comes radiating out of the chat here. So thank you for those who are making the greetings, and thanks to all those of you who have those kinds of greetings in your heart.

We're continuing with mindfulness of breathing. One of the wonderful functions or potentials of mindfulness of breathing is a combination of doing both mindfulness and concentration practice. We are both developing a steadiness of mind to stay on the breath, to really rest in the breathing, or stay immersed in the world of breathing without being pulled into extraneous thoughts, ideas, and feelings. It can be a real delight to simplify the mind, and even our life in a certain way, and be absorbed in one thing—in this case, the breathing. It's not necessarily that the breathing is so wonderful, as it is the absorption, the intimacy with it. That intimacy, connection, and continuity open up a whole different inner world of possibility.

One of those possibilities is to observe carefully the experience of breathing, which is really where Vipassana^[1] practice, the practice of insight, begins opening up. To distinguish and highlight what observing means, we can distinguish between looking, seeing, and observing.

Looking is an active function. If we say, "Look, look, look at, look for, look for the needle in the haystack," there's a kind of staring that might go on. You might actively engage the eyes to see and try to find the thing that you've been asked to look for. It might be very actively engaged. Even the head might go forward, and the eyes may be more fixated as they search the terrain to see.

In the more passive sense of the word, or less active sense of the word, there's just seeing. There doesn't have to be an intention to see, a determination to see, any effort to find anything, or look for anything particular. Just seeing happens, and we might not even choose what we see; new things come in, and you just see that for now. It's more of a receptive quality than the active quality of looking.

Observing has a little bit of both qualities. Observing has the receptive quality of just seeing—not interfering, not trying so hard, not staring at anything, or fixating on something. But it is also a little bit of intentional, gentle, loving determination and intentionality to be intimate with the experience, to really get closer, and to feel, sense, and experience it in a more precise way. It's a little bit like you're still seeing within that receptive mode, but you've placed a magnifying glass, or you're still seeing, but you've gotten really close.

I've had a history of being nearsighted, and that's changing a little bit now with cataract surgery in one eye, but my right eye is still nearsighted. If I keep my hand three feet away from myself, I see that I have a hand, but I don't see many details at all; it's a little bit fuzzy. But as I bring it closer, I can see all the lines and the fingerprints. I can see the details of my hand very nicely. So I am still just seeing, but things get highlighted and clear and clearer. It's a little bit like that.

The observing that we're building, finding, or discovering—that comes with being settled and immersed in the world of breathing—is to now begin seeing the subtlety or the details, almost the fingerprints, of each little in-breath and out-breath, each little experience of breathing. So the observing has a little bit more intimacy than just seeing might have, but not the active kind of looking forward and reaching out that looking would have.

Guided Meditation (61) Observing Inconstancy

To observe, take a comfortable meditation posture and gently close your eyes.

Relax, let go, soften your body. Tune into your body. See your body, feel your body.

Then, within this body, take a few long, slow, deep breaths, the purpose of which is to remind yourself now that you're going to be with your breathing. You're offering to accompany your breathing, and your breathing, in a sense, is going to accompany you. Hand in hand you will go.

Here you are, saying hello to your breathing with these big breaths, and then letting your breathing return to normal.

As a way of settling into your breathing more, you might relax your shoulders. As you relax your shoulders, it's almost as if you're relaxing into the body breathing, easing up some of the muscles that are surrounding the body's engagement in breathing.

And the same thing with the belly—to relax the belly as you breathe so that there's a greater connection to breathing and freedom to breathing.

Maybe there's also a softening in the chest, the solar plexus area. As you relax the chest, it's almost like you're able to settle in more to the experience of the body breathing. If you experience the breathing mostly in the nostrils, maybe there's a way of softening and relaxing your face so that you settle more into the place where you feel the breathing.

There, as you exhale, relax your thinking. Calm your thinking a little bit.

Reassuring the mind that things are okay at this moment, just for now, here.

As you exhale, letting go of your thoughts. As you let go of your thoughts, let go into your breathing.

In the beginning of this sitting, keep returning to your breathing as often as necessary, but do so gently, lovingly. Do so in a way that the returning and beginning again is pleasant. The returning and beginning again itself is done in a way that's calming and relaxing. Maybe a mental tai chi, where you flow awareness back into your breathing.

And then stay intimate with the inhales, with the exhales. As if there's a wonderful tai chi dance between breathing and your awareness, where the awareness mirrors the breathing, follows the breathing, rides the breathing.

Relaxing the mind's ability to be aware so that the awareness of breathing is more receptive than active, but a receptivity that is committed to the intimacy between awareness and breathing.

And then, with a little bit more intimacy, awareness getting really close to the inhales and the exhales, begin to experience the details of sensations that come into play as you breathe in, that come into play as you breathe out. Breathing in, breathing out intimately.

Letting the sensations that are connected to breathing begin to stand out and highlight in the clarity of awareness that's not swept away in thinking and thoughts, but becomes more like a soft, relaxed magnifying glass that just feels and senses intimately the beginning, the middle, the end of the inhale; the beginning, the middle, and the end of the exhale. Observing.

Observing the particular detail of your breathing. The particular detail of all the sensations that come into play as you breathe. And those sensations are changing.

No need to look at the details in any different way, but begin observing in a relaxed, receptive way how every sensation that comes into play as you breathe changes by fading away or turning into something else.

Maybe the way that waves washing up on a shore are constantly changing as they wash up and roll back on the sand.

Immerse yourself in that changing landscape of breathing.

Observing in a relaxed but careful way. Not only noticing how the sensations change, notice that some appear and disappear. An ongoing sequence of sensations that appear and disappear throughout the inhale, throughout the exhale. No need to think about it or be involved with them, but allow those sensations to be known as coming and going.

As we observe the breathing, allowing the sensations to come and go on their own, there is a giving of freedom to those sensations. There's allowing each of them to be its own self as it arises, as it passes.

And this way in which observing grants freedom from our involvement, our entanglement, our fixing, and wanting is a wonderful lesson for how to be with others: to allow others to be as they are.

To have the ability to be present, and maybe even a certain intimacy or closeness or attentiveness. We allow others to be who they are, where others become free of our desires, our needs, our expectations, our fixing, our wanting, our bias, and interpretations.

To allow the deep capacity to observe this way be registered deeply in the mind and the heart. And to stay close to it, so we begin to find wise ways of offering this freedom to others—the freedom from what our minds do.

And may it be that this meditation practice that we do offers a lot of freedom for others to be as they are.

They might not recognize that you're granting them freedom because it's really a freedom within which how they are seen and received in ourselves. And it's a freedom that then also makes more room for the heart's tenderness, kindness, and love for others to shine forth.

In a way, this freedom that the mind grants to others allows space for more love, more care.

And may it be that what we learn here can be expressed in the words: May others be happy. May others be safe. May others be peaceful. May others be free. And may others be included in my circle of care.

A care that is characterized by freedom, the giving of freedom to others so they can be themselves in some deep way.

May all beings everywhere be free and safe.