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Mindfulness of Breathing (2) Introduction

Today I'd like to continue the introduction to the theme for this next period of time. The theme is mindfulness of breathing, and specifically the teachings the Buddha gave on the sixteen stages, or sixteen steps, of mindfulness of breathing.

To give a little further introduction to this, the intimacy of breathing to the world and to ourselves is quite phenomenal. If we live in our thoughts the whole time, we might not really appreciate this great intimacy, cooperative nature, and connected nature that we have with our world around us and also to the world within us. Breathing can be a bridge for us to feel a deeper connection to the world and a deeper connection to ourselves.

The Intimacy of Breathing

To give you one example that is a little bit more conceptual, but which had a big impact on me when I was in college: I took a botany class and was sitting in this big amphitheater in Davis, California, where I went to college. The professor was drawing big circular diagrams on the board of the cycle of oxygen and carbon dioxide, and how these cycles operated in nature. I was enthralled by this whole description. I think I got somewhat concentrated listening to it and involved in it.

As I left at the end of the class, walking out of this big amphitheater classroom, you come into a courtyard with some very big valley oaks—old, large oak trees. I was stunned. I stood in the middle of the courtyard and looked at these oak trees, having just heard about the cycles of oxygen and carbon dioxide from them. I wondered and thought, I could lose a kidney, I could lose an arm, I could lose an eye, I could lose all kinds of parts of my body, but I still depend on these plants creating oxygen. They are in some ways more important to me than some of these parts of my own body.

Then I wondered, and this is what really stopped my mind for a little bit in a wonderful, delightful way: "Well, in that case, where do I stop and where do the trees begin?" I had this feeling that, from this perspective, there was a continuity. There was no sharp line between me here and the trees there. Somehow, we were in it together. This sense of intimacy, interconnectivity, mutuality, and mutual support was a very inspiring moment in my life to feel and sense.

Connecting to the Breath

This kind of feeling, this connection, this intimacy, partly came because I was so concentrated. Being able to ride the breath and get concentrated clears the debris and distractibility in the mind so that we see with greater clarity. There tends to be a feeling of intimacy and connection that comes from that.

Turning the attention inward to the breathing is also a way of deeply connecting to ourselves. It turns out that the deeper we get into meditation, the more we can feel and see how subtle adjustments and changes in the breathing have to do with our emotional and mental state and our reactivity. It's possible to be very settled and then see that if we start picking up a particular exciting thought, the breathing changes accordingly. Maybe the system thinks it needs more oxygen now in order to have more energy to get engaged in this thing.

Even a little bit of anger, fear, clinging, or attachment affects the breathing. We realize that breathing is intimately connected to all these aspects of our psychology, and there's mutuality there because one affects the other. If we can attend to the breathing and really stay with it, letting the breathing become easeful, relaxed, and natural, that actually changes our emotional and mental states, and vice versa. By really getting into the breathing and seeing that connection, it's a way of settling in and harmonizing our inner mental life in a way that doesn't require understanding it in some deep way, figuring it out, analyzing it, or even fixing it. The breathing rectifies and harmonizes if you really trust and engage in it.

I share these two examples to show that breathing is intimately connected to so much of human life that it's well worth spending time really learning to connect to your breath. Make it a habit as you go through the day to just notice your breathing. It's been so beneficial for me to have this habit. I'll go into a store, be in a conversation with someone, or be giving a dharma talk, and the breathing will sometimes let me know that I've gotten caught, getting too attached to something, or a little over-involved. Because the breathing changes, having it as a regular reference point helps me catch myself and see what I'm doing faster than if I were tracking all the complexity of my mind and what was going on there.

The Buddha's Instruction to Rāhula

Breathing is such a useful thing. From the best records we have, it indicates that the primary meditation practice the Buddha himself did was mindfulness of breathing. There are records of him going off and sitting from one to three months in the forest on a self-retreat. When he came out, he would tell his followers, "During that retreat, I practiced mindfulness of breathing."

There's a very touching story of the Buddha teaching mindfulness of breathing to his own son, Rāhula^[1]. It seems his son was a teenager and looked a little bit like his father. The Buddha was certainly well-respected in his time, so looking a little bit like him could easily give birth to a little bit of vanity for a teenager.

As they were going for alms round together into the town, the Buddha picked up on the vanity that his son had. He turned around to his son and said this:

"Rāhula, any kind of material form whatsoever, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, all material form should be seen as it actually is with proper wisdom: This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self."

Anything that's physical—any physical shape or characteristic that we have—should not be seen as "me, myself, and mine." Since it was how Rāhula thought he looked—his physical appearance—that he was caught by, Rāhula thought he had been outed. He felt he had been admonished a little bit by the Buddha's statement. So Rāhula went back to the forest monastery where they were staying instead of going to get his daily meal.

Then someone said to Rāhula, "You should really ask your dad to give you instructions in meditation." When the Buddha came back, Rāhula got instructions in meditation, maybe for the first time. After some preliminary instructions, the Buddha gave his son instructions in the sixteen stages of breath meditation. To me, this closeness and connectivity between the father and son is very touching.

The Ānāpānasati Sutta

The most important discourse on this mindfulness of breathing is called the Ānāpānasati Sutta^[2]—the sutta on breathing in and breathing out mindfully. This also emphasizes this mutuality, this interconnectedness, and the harmonious, unifying way that things can come together with breathing.

I have run out of time for now, but tomorrow I'll do one more introductory talk on this topic. We will discuss this very important discourse of the Buddha where the instruction is given in these sixteen stages, and then we'll start getting into this topic more deeply.

Finally, I'll say that when I was studying Zen in Japan, where there was also a big emphasis on mindfulness of breathing, one of my Zen teachers said that all of Buddhism can be discovered through mindfulness of breathing—through attention to breathing. I more or less go along with that. If you really care for, attend to, and entrust yourself to be referenced to your breathing, all the things you need to know, discover, and become really free and liberated will appear. They will be part of that and come into play in their own time and their own way.

I hope that over time you'll come to really love the experience of breathing—that somehow there is love in attention to breathing, love in breathing, and that you will be free.

Thank you so much, and I look forward to tomorrow.