Mindfulness of Breathing (3) Introduction

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Dharmette: Mindfulness of Breathing (3) Introduction. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 06, 2021. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Mindfulness of Breathing (3) Introduction

Today I'd like to give the third introductory talk on this topic of mindfulness of breathing, and then tomorrow we'll start with the sixteen steps that the Buddha taught for this practice. There is one particular discourse of the Buddha where he lays out this teaching of the sixteen steps, and the discourse can be divided into three parts.

One of the things that characterizes these parts is the way in which they are unifying things. It doesn't say this explicitly, so maybe this is my interpretation, but there's a way in which it emphasizes bringing together the harmony of different elements of practice. It unifies all the different practices that the Buddha taught, all the different mind states that happen in meditation, the different developments of meditation, and how it all fits together in a harmonious whole. It also characterizes the Buddhist community at his time—how they came together in a harmonious, unified way.

The Full Moon Night and a Harmonious Community

The discourse begins with a beautiful image of a full moon night in the fall, maybe around September in ancient India, in the woods. There's a wonderful way in which the full moon in the woods—if the canopy is not too dense—can really light up the space with a beautiful, clear, peaceful, calm light. You can see pretty well at night. This big full moon is so much different than the sun, which you can't really look at without injuring yourself. The moon, which represents the awakened mind in Buddhism, is safe to look at. It's cool, it's peaceful, and it brings a light so we can see clearly in the dark.

On this full moon night in the woods, there is a large gathering of the Buddha's disciples. All ten senior disciples of the Buddha are there together. They are there for three months for what is called the Rains Retreat^[1]. Each of them is there together with a group of new monks whom they are training. One of the senior disciples of the Buddha has ten new monks, one has twenty, another thirty, up to a hundred and forty—all in multiples of ten. It's well organized. This idea of the community being organized, harmonious, and orderly is implied in this setting.

Each of these senior disciples is teaching the younger disciples for these three months, teaching them meditation and the practice. The Buddha gathers them together on this full moon night and says to them all, "I'm really pleased with all of you, and delighted in your practice. You've developed and matured wonderfully in this practice; however, you can mature more. There is further work to be done. So, rather than leaving now at the end of this Rains Retreat, I'm going to stay here one more month. Why don't you stay one more month and keep practicing, because you're doing so well?"

So they do. Here they are, living together harmoniously in the woods. The senior disciples are living together and doing the same thing, supporting one another, and the Buddha is pleased. It's this image of unity and harmony—harmony of practice and dedication. The full moon can almost stand for the maturity of these practitioners, representing that their hearts are becoming full, mature, and awakened.

Unifying the Path of Practice

They practice for another month, and then the Buddha gathers them together again. He says, "I'm really pleased by all of you, and you have really matured further." He notes that in this community, everyone is well-practiced, well-settled, and ethical. There's no one who's slacking off, and he is really happy with how it's going. You get the sense that the whole community is maturing harmoniously, involved in the same thing, and developing in the same way on the path of practice.

He then says, "Here among you all, there are those of you who are fully awakened, and those of you who are well on the way to full awakening at different stages. There are those of you who are practicing the Four Foundations of Mindfulness^[2], practicing the Seven Factors of Awakening^[3], or practicing the Eightfold Path. You are practicing developing the Five Faculties^[4], the Five Powers^[5], and the Four Bases of Success^[6]." He mentions that they are practicing all these different practices, including loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity^[7]. All these different practices and developments that go on in early Buddhism are represented in that community. They all have a place, and they are all important and valuable. That is the setup for the teachings on breathing.

Then the Buddha says—and I don't think he used this exact word, but he essentially says—that mindfulness of breathing, when practiced and cultivated frequently, leads to great benefit and great advantage. When you practice mindfulness of breathing, it cultivates the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. As you cultivate the Four Foundations of Mindfulness with breath meditation, it develops the Seven Factors of Awakening. As the Seven Factors of Awakening develop, they lead to an initial awakening^[8]. That initial awakening allows those seven factors to develop further, which leads to final awakening.

Here again, there's a way in which he is bringing together all these different parts of the path of practice and explaining how they fit together and support each other. Mindfulness of breathing is not a separate practice from the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. It's not a separate practice from cultivating the Seven Factors of Awakening. He has built up this whole momentum in this prologue to the discourse, showing why mindfulness of breathing is so valuable.

Preliminary Instructions for Breath Meditation

Then he starts giving the instructions. Before talking about the first step, he gives the preliminary instructions for doing breath meditation. It's worth reading them directly:

"And how is mindfulness of breathing developed and cultivated so it is of great fruit and great benefit? Here a practitioner, gone to the forest, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut, sits down, having folded their legs crosswise, set their body erect, and established mindfulness to the forefront. Ever mindful one breathes in, ever mindful one breathes out."

There's a definitiveness to being here, to sitting down to meditate. The Buddha is very specific about the location. I don't think it's because you have to go to those particular locations to meditate, but rather it's this idea of sitting in a definitive place: "I'm here. This is the place where I'm sitting. I'm rooted, and I'm going to be." Whether in the forest, at the root of a tree, in an empty hut, or in a quiet room in your house, there's a kind of definitiveness that "this is the spot."

Then he says, "having folded one's legs crosswise." This is a cross-legged, seated posture. There are other postures as well. Elsewhere he talks about four dignified postures: sitting upright, lying down, standing, and walking. All are suitable meditation postures. But again, there is this definitiveness of really taking your place and sitting up.

He says, "set their body erect." If you're lying down, your physical body is not erect. But maybe "erect" also means a kind of internal uprightness, an internal integrity, or internal confidence: "Yes, here I'm going to practice." There's time, effort, and emphasis placed on gathering oneself together. Symbolically, folding your legs together is a gathering together—coming here and being established here. I used to be able to sit in full lotus, and there is a kind of definitiveness and a gathering together of the physical energies that seems to happen with this posture. It really helps you to definitively be here.

Establishing Mindfulness: The Naturalist Analogy

With that: "ever mindful one breathes in, ever mindful one breathes out." This is a fascinating idea—that one establishes mindfulness. He says, "establish mindfulness to the forefront." It's interesting that he uses the term "establishes mindfulness" as opposed to "now you do mindfulness," "now you apply mindfulness," or "now you are busy being mindful."

Establishing mindfulness has a very different connotation than doing mindfulness. I like to think of this as awareness. You don't do awareness, but you can establish yourself in awareness.

I'll give you an analogy, and then we'll stop. Imagine that you're a naturalist and you're told there's an amazing bird somewhere in the wild, maybe in the woods. But the bird is very shy. If you want to see this amazing bird, it's important to go to a particular place—a clearing in the woods—and stand there very still. You have to be very patient. The bird can come from any direction. It can come from above, from behind, from below, or it might suddenly appear. It comes through very quickly, so if you blink, you almost might miss it.

If you're too busy looking for it, you can't really see it. The very act of looking for it makes the mind too busy. You have to just stand there and be very still, with all your senses open, establishing awareness. You keep your senses open without doing too much application, looking, or searching. Just be open to all your senses so you're alert enough that when the bird comes through, you're ready to pick it up, to understand, and to see it there. If you spend your time daydreaming and thinking, you won't have all your senses open enough to see the bird^[9]. That's my simile^[10] for the idea of establishing mindfulness and establishing awareness.

Then, "ever aware one breathes in, ever aware one breathes out." Since breathing is so close and intimate with the whole inner experience of awareness, if awareness is established, then we naturally become aware of breathing. This has a different feeling than instructions that say, "Now bore into your breathing, be in the control tower, really apply yourself, and focus on the breathing." Yes, it is a strong attention to breathing, but it's found through establishing attention and establishing awareness.

When awareness is established and you're breathing in and breathing out, then the sixteen stages of breathing begin, which we'll talk about tomorrow.

Thank you very much for today, and I look forward to tomorrow.