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Mindfulness of Breathing (6) Distinctions and Step 3

So we're going to continue here on the Buddha's 16 steps of mindfulness of breathing and begin coming into the third step. The first two steps: the first one is to experience—to train oneself to really be present for an experience as fully as one can, the inhales and exhales. And when the inhales and exhales are long, to experience them as long, to really be there in the experience. And when they're short, to really be there in the experience of them being short. I use this word experience intentionally to make a distinction between trying too much to know or to understand, to search, and to feel what's going on. Mindfulness is not a lot of work, but it's more like dialing in an old radio until you get just the right frequency so you can hear clearly. You want to kind of dial in to really be present and experience the body. The first step is experiencing a long breath as a long breath. The second step is, when the breathing becomes shorter, to experience it as a shorter breath. So whether the inhale is shorter or the exhale is shorter, experience it as a shorter breath.

Here we're seeing a distinction being made—these two sets of distinctions. One is a distinction between the inhale and the exhale. The other, between these first two steps, is between a long breath and a short breath. I interpret this to mean that as we're sitting and meditating and we get calmer, more centered, the breathing begins to shift and change. The breathing slows down. And as the breathing slows down, it might not be as long. Of course, sometimes when we are more agitated, the breath is very fast and short. And maybe the opposite happens—sometimes as we sit down, the breath does get longer as we get more settled and relaxed. But then later, you might find it gets more subtle and shorter and much more minute. Even the experience of breathing in deep meditation, there can be a sense of almost not breathing at all. Partly that's because we hardly need to breathe anymore. We don't need much oxygen anymore because we're not doing a lot; we're not being so active.

Experiencing distinctions is a huge part of Buddhism. Buddhism is really based on our natural capacity to see differences between one thing and another. We'll see that as we go through the 16 steps. Each of these steps is a new distinction, a new differentiation of things, so we're experiencing things more fully, more precisely, more clearly. In the beginning, it's just with the breathing. I also interpret this idea of experiencing the long breaths and short breaths as being an encouragement to really experience all the different qualities of sensations and experiences that come with each in-breath and out-breath. Whether it's fast or slow, whether the breath feels tight, held, or loose and relaxed. The expansion experiences and the contraction as the chest and the belly expand and contract. The temperatures in the nostrils change with the in-breath and out-breath. There is a sense of sharpness sometimes on the in-breath, and softer on the exhale. Sometimes the in-breath can feel jagged and rough, kind of jerky, and sometimes it's a nice smooth flow. Same thing with the exhale. This is to begin entering into this world of breathing and really experiencing it more and more fully.

Experiencing the breathing more and more fully is not meant to be work. It's meant to be almost—I don't know if enjoying is the right word—in the same way that you would taste food really fully and carefully if you really wanted to enjoy it. As if you're really going to enjoy the breath, you really feel it and sense it deeply.

As we settle into the breathing, what it means is we're no longer so distracted or caught up in our thoughts and preoccupations. It can take quite a while for us to really settle down to the breathing and being, coming back over and over again to the breathing, letting go of our thoughts over and over again. It is said that it doesn't matter how often the mind wanders off. It only matters that every time you do so, you bring it back in a nice way and start over again. I love the expression starting over. As we start over again repeatedly, the energy that goes into thinking begins to abate. The thinking has less pull on us, and we find ourselves settled more and more here, relaxed, and calm in the present moment.

We're not just getting calm, and this is very important to understand. It's not just a process of using the breathing to get calmer and calmer and calmer. Because if we do that, then the mind's sharpness to make distinctions—natural distinctions, differentiations to really feel things more fully and clearly—begins to also get dull. So it's not just about getting calm; that's why we want to have a certain degree of calmness and alertness or clarity in the mind. As the mind gets more subtle and more in the present, more and more here, less and less distracted, we tend to start taking in more experiences of what's happening for ourselves in the present moment. We start becoming aware of the wider range of experience in the body. There's a tendency for people who are doing mindfulness of breathing that as they settle in to experience their body more and more, there is a more sense of embodiment and presence.

The third step of Anapanasati^[1] is: one trains oneself, "breathing in, one experiences the whole body; breathing out, one experiences the whole body." This idea of experiencing the whole body means the awareness now becomes more inclusive. We might still be centered on the breathing, but the peripheral attention now begins experiencing more and more of the body. This happens for a variety of reasons. The primary one, as I said, is because we're getting calmer, more relaxed, and less distracted. Sometimes it's because as we settle in, we become acutely aware of where the body is held tight. The tensions of the body become clearer and clearer, and we become aware of the various tensions that we weren't aware of in daily life because we were so distracted and busy. There's a phase of an honest meeting of all the holding patterns and the tensions that we carry that is part of the meditation practice. Part of this opening up to the body is the body revealing itself and saying, "Hey, look how tense I am. Include me, pay attention to me too." Some of it is just a natural expansion of attention to feel more and more.

For some people, this experience of the whole body is more limited to the whole experience of the breath, what's called the breath body—the full range of how the body experiences the changes as we breathe in and breathe out. The whole ways in which the diaphragm, the belly, the chest, the nostrils, the back of the throat—all the things that together are the breath body. And some people interpret this to mean the whole body itself, and we're breathing now with the whole body. It's like the whole body is breathing with us.

There are many ways in which experiencing the body comes into play at this third step, and we'll talk about this as we go forward in the next days. Mindfulness of the body is really very central to Buddhism as a whole, to the early teachings of the Buddha, and very important for this deepening process of the 16 steps. It turns out the more we can be embodied, the easier it is to access, experience, and receive the deeper benefits of meditation. So it's well worth spending time with mindfulness of the body and really learning to appreciate this more and more deeply.

We'll continue this journey of breath. I'm hoping to lay out all kinds of different angles for appreciating the breathing more and more. Sometimes maybe it'll seem a little bit uninteresting for you, some of what I teach here around breathing. But it's the sum total of all these things together, as we take them in and know them, that we'll have a wider and wider range of connecting to the present moment, to the breathing, to meditation. It's the whole package, both what's interesting and not interesting, that can help us begin opening up into this wonderful journey of meditation. Thank you, and I look forward to being with you here again tomorrow.