Like a fish out of water,
Thrown on high ground,
This mind thrashes about
Trying to escape Mara’s command.

— Dhammapada 34

In practicing mindfulness, it can be helpful to remember that the practice works even when it doesn’t seem to work. Perhaps this is explained best through an analogy.

Consider a mountain stream where the water is quite clear, and seems placid and still. But if you place a stick into the water, a small wake around the stick shows that in fact the water is flowing. The stick becomes a reference point that helps us notice the movement of the water.

Similarly, the practice of mindfulness is a reference point for noticing aspects of our lives that we may have missed. This is especially true for mindfulness of breathing. In trying to stay present for the breath, you may become aware of the concerns and the momentum of the mind that pull the attention away from the breath. If you can remain with the breath, then obviously mindfulness of breathing is working. However, if your attempt to stay with the breath results in increased awareness of what pulls you away from the breath, then the practice is also working.

Without the reference of mindfulness practice, it is quite easy to remain unaware of the preoccupations, tensions, and momentum operating in your life. For example, if you are busily doing many things, the concern for getting things done can blind you to the tension building in the body and mind. Only by stopping to be mindful may you become aware of the tensions and feelings that are present.

Sometimes your attempt to be with the breath is the only way that you see the speed at which the mind is racing. Riding on a train, if you focus on the mountains in the distance, you might not notice the speed of the train. However, if you bring your attention closer, the rapidly appearing and disappearing telephone poles next to the tracks reveal the train’s speed. Even when you have trouble staying with the breath, your continued effort to come back to the breath can highlight what might otherwise be unnoticed, i.e., the rapid momentum of the mind. In fact, the faster our thinking and the greater the preoccupation, the greater the need for something close by like the breath to help bring an awareness of what is going on. That awareness, in turn, often brings some freedom from the preoccupation.

When staying with the breath during meditation is difficult, we can easily get discouraged. However, that difficulty is an opportunity to become more aware of the forces of mind and the feelings causing the distractions. Remember, if we learn from what is going on, regardless of what is happening, the practice is working, even when it seems not to be working, when we aren’t able to stay with the breath.

Even when it is relatively easy to stay with the breath, mindfulness of the breathing can still function as an important reference point. In this case it may not be a reference point for the strong forces of distraction, but rather for subtler thoughts and feelings that may lie close to the root of our concerns and motivations. Don’t pursue those thoughts or feelings. Simply be aware of their presence while continuing to develop the meditation on the breath, so that the breath can become an even more refined reference point. When we are settled on the breath, the heart becomes clear, peaceful, and still like a mountain pool. Then we can see all the way to the bottom.

♦

Excerpted from Gil Fronsdal’s 2008 book, The Issue at Hand: Essays of Buddhist Mindfulness Practice. Read more about The Issue at Hand in the latest issue of Tricycle magazine.

The post How Mindfulness Works Even When It Doesn’t appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In reflecting on how my practice has evolved over the years, I look back over my life and remember quite vividly the first Buddhist retreat I ever attended almost exactly fifty years ago. It was taught by a wonderful Thai monk, Koon Kum Heng, who presented a classical Theravada practice that he called rising and falling. For seven long days I did nothing but observe how my breath caused my front belly wall to rise and fall on the inhalation and exhalation. With each inhalation the belly could be observed, and eventually be felt, expanding outward. On the ensuing exhalation it would contract back in. The movement never stopped. Over and over and over again while sitting in an upright meditation posture, standing, lying down, and walking slowly from place to place, I did my best to focus my entire attention on my belly as it rose and fell on the breath.  

Such simple instructions, but like everything that first appears simple, it was far easier said than done as inevitably I’d find that my mind would wander off on a parade of errant thoughts that with uncanny success would hijack my awareness and leave me oblivious to the rising and falling of my belly. The practice only became somewhat stabilized toward the end of the retreat when I realized I was no longer observing the rising and falling action from the safe distance of my mind but was actually feeling the expansion and retraction of the belly and grounding myself there.  

At one point during that retreat I recall chuckling to myself over a reminiscence about a phrase that would not infrequently come up in conversations with friends of my parents. Oriented toward succeeding in life (which to them mostly meant going into medicine, law, or business), they would often remark when I told them as a teenager that I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life: “Well, you’re not going to just sit around and contemplate your navel, are you?” 

During the retreat I realized that they really had no idea about the source from which that phrase—which they viewed pejoratively—had arisen. To them it meant not committing to anything and wasting away your life. Yet here I was, hour after hour, day after day, doing nothing but “contemplating my navel,” and I loved it! By the end of the retreat I felt that my center of gravity had dropped down out of the thoughts in my head into the felt presence in my belly. Thought would appear and evaporate so effortlessly that I had my first clear awareness that I was not my thoughts. I was not the mind that thinks and the speaker of those thoughts. Instead, I was the grounded feeling of presence emanating out of my belly. It felt so relieving and wholesome. Endlessly rising and falling, rising and falling, and I loved going along for the ride.  

Only many years later did I understand that this practice of observing the rising and falling of the belly in response to the breath draws on the opening instructions on breathing as recorded in the Satipatthana Sutta, one of Buddhism’s earliest texts whose words have been attributed by some scholars to the Buddha himself. After telling us to sit down in a posture of meditation with the spine erect and upright, he instructs us to become aware of the breath as it enters and leaves the body, and he goes on to tell us to conduct this examination at the front of the body.  

Throughout the long history of Buddhism, the two most popular places at the front of the body to explore these instructions have been the nostrils, where breath can be felt to go in and out, and the front belly wall that can be felt to rise and fall unceasingly in response to the breath. Constant observation of the breath can be so potent and effective that many Buddhist traditions understandably focus exclusively on this opening instruction. But this is not where the instructions end. Just a few short sentences later, in a completely remarkable statement, the Buddha suggests that we no longer just focus our awareness narrowly on one small place at the front of the body but instead breathe through the whole body. 

I’ve wrestled and danced and struggled and played with that culminating instruction for the better part of my life on the cushion. What could it possibly be pointing to? Over the long years I’ve come to realize that the initial instruction to become aware of breath at the front of the body refers to the classical practice of mindfulness but that the culminating instruction to breathe through the whole body takes us into the world of bodyfullness. 

What might rising and falling mean to the exploration of bodyfullness?  

To breathe through the whole body you have to do two things. First, you need to awaken the felt, shimmering presence of the entire body. How could you breathe through the whole body if you’re unable to feel it? On every part of the body, down to the smallest cell, minute, tingling, buzzing, carbonating, pulsating sensations can be felt to exist. But, deep in our own thoughts, we have little awareness of their vibratory presence. In fact, we have to blanket them over to be able to function in the quality of consciousness that passes as normal in the world that is so often, as Thich Nhat Hanh famously observed, lost in thought. Experiencing the entire body, from toe to head and everywhere in between, as a unified field of felt vibratory presence, is the first step in the awakening of a bodyfullness that can experience breath interacting with the whole of the body.  

The second requirement—and this is the most radical piece I bring to the dharma conversation—is that we need to allow subtle, continuous, amoeba-like motions to occur throughout the entire body in resilient response to the force of the breath that wants to make its transmitted way through a relaxed and awakened body—not unlike how a wave moves through a body of water. In most presentations of meditation, we’re instructed to sit completely still, like a stone garden statue of the Buddha. But this frozen stillness not only doesn’t allow the breath to move through the body, but it also causes so many of us so much pain and discomfort in long retreat.  

Over the decades, as my awareness expanded naturally from an exclusive observational focus on my belly to an inclusive felt awareness of the whole of the body, I’ve come to realize that these altogether natural motions in my body start with giving my entire spine permission to rise and fall on the breath. The joints in the spine are no different from joints anywhere in the body. They’re there for one purpose and one purpose only: to move. In a deeply relaxed state I can feel my entire spine lengthening as I inhale and shortening back down as I exhale. In other words, I can feel the entire spine rising and falling. What I’ve found over all these long years of fascination with sitting down on my cushions is that, when I enter into bodyfullness and experience how breath can be felt to interact with, stimulate, and move through the whole body, a plug gets pulled on the consciousness of “lost in thought,” and the altogether natural dimensions of awakened body and mind, which “lost in thought” keeps us forever removed from, are revealed effortlessly and spontaneously.  

***

sit down in a posture of meditation
just feel yourself sitting there
as tall as you can be
but as relaxed as you can be

focus your attention
on your belly

even in the stillest of bodies
your belly can be observed and felt
to rise and fall
expand and contract
on the inhalation and exhalation of breath

rising and falling
rising and falling

observe the motions
feel the motions
become the motions

***

now broaden your focus
to include a felt awareness
of your entire body
leaving nothing out

pass your awareness
slowly through your body
from head to foot
awakening felt shimmer
through the simple act
of focusing your attention
on a part of the body
like shining a flashlight
into a dark corner of a basement

***

relax as you inhale
and feel your entire spine lengthen

your lumbar spine moves and lengthens
your thoracic spine moves and lengthens
your cervical spine moves and lengthens

as you exhale
feel the entire body shorten back down

inhale fully and deeply
down from your diaphragm
down through your pelvis and legs
into the earth

simultaneously
feel how the breath can be felt
to lift the entire body upward

rising and falling
through the entire long shaft
of the upright body

***

breathing down into the earth
grounds and stabilizes clarity of mind

as it initiates the rise
stay grounded in the earth

when you feel the breath
causing the head to lift
let go and soften
the top of the head
the muscles around the eyes
and both sides of the cranium

feel the energies
in these three places in the cranium
billowing open
let vision and sound
replace thought

explore the rising and falling practice of bodyfullness
while you’re sitting formally in meditation
while you’re standing and walking
and making your way through your life

◆

Try Will Johnson’s Tricycle online course, “The Posture of Meditation,” at learn.tricycle.org.

The post Rising and Falling: From Mindfulness to ‘Bodyfullness’ appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In music, tone is everything. A friend of mine studies shakuhachi, the Japanese flute. His teacher focuses almost exclusively on tone, for when the tone is true, the music is alive. Technical brilliance by itself may be impressive, but if the tone isn’t true, the music does not resonate, and those who listen soon become bored or restless.

The same holds true for meditation. There is a quality in attention, and when you hit it, your practice is alive and awake, and thinking and dullness drop away on their own.

As in musical training, it is often helpful to practice simple basic exercises to develop stability, clarity, and flexibility. One that I have found helpful is the one-breath meditation. This is good to do any time, but it is particularly helpful when you are feeling very agitated or very dull.

Related: Working and Playing with the Breath, a Dharma Talk by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Don’t try to hold your attention on the breath. In the case of agitation, you will inevitably end up suppressing material, and you will become more agitated.  In the case of dullness, you’ll keep falling into deeper and deeper torpor or even sleep.

Instead, breathe out just once. You are always able to have clear stable attention for one breath, so breathe out, gently and steadily without strain. At the natural end of the exhalation, stop. Let your body breathe however it wants to. Look around for a moment or two. If you wish, adjust your posture and move your body a little. And then breathe out again.

Just one breath. And stop. Do this over and over again.

After a few such one-breath meditations, you may find that a certain quality has developed in your attention, a stable clarity. It may be subtle. It may be fragile. But it’s there. You can’t make it happen. You can’t hold onto it. But it comes when you breathe out.

When you can touch that stable clarity consistently, do a two-breath meditation. Breathe out, breathe in, and then breathe out again. Then stop, look around, relax, move a little if you wish, as before. If that clarity was present throughout the two-breath meditation, good. Do it again. If not, continue with one-breath meditations.

When you feel ready, you can lengthen to three-breath meditations, or more.

You may think the point here is to build up your ability to rest in that awareness for longer and longer periods. You can take that approach if you want, but in doing so, you run the risk of falling back into a pattern of achievement, and that will cause problems down the line.

Related: Breathe Deep

Practically speaking, on any given day, you will probably reach a point where that stable clarity no longer arises. Okay, you’ve run out of juice.  That’s a good time to move to another practice or end your meditation period. No point in beating a dead horse, as they say. When you return to practice the next day, you will naturally pick up where you left off, fresh and rested.

In my experience, the important point is that you actually taste that clarity, just as the musician tastes what it’s like to blow a clear clean note that is true and awake. There is a body experience and a body memory in that single note practice, and the same holds true in meditation. When you hit that stable clear attention, mind and body both relax and are in tune, so to speak. And the more you touch into it, the more your mind and body become attuned to it. In this way, one-breath meditations can be more helpful than long periods of motionless sitting.

This article originally appeared, in slightly different form, in the Unfettered Mind newsletter. It was originally published on Tricycle’s website on March 5, 2019.

The post One-Breath Meditation appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Personal hang-ups and over-reactions can occasionally throw us for a loop and even sabotage important relationships and projects. They often escape a person’s understanding and control and force them to endure their problems, leaving them increasingly insecure. I have come to call these constellations LRPPs (pronounced: lurps), or Long-standing, Recurrent, Painful Patterns of hurt. A person’s early experiences, especially the painful ones, predispose them to a heightened sensitivity to certain problems and to reacting to those problems in self-defeating ways. Being insecure and self-preoccupied in this way keeps people from fulfilling their purpose and from applying themselves meaningfully. Psychotherapy, as well as mindfulness, compassion, and awareness meditation practices, have helped me during the last four decades to find a measure of peace and freedom. 

I found that working with painful patterns is especially necessary in these times, as many of our old painful patterns are getting triggered by the difficult circumstances in our country and in our world. Uncertainty, trauma, danger, and divisiveness are regularly unearthing our own woundedness and fears.

Over the years I have learned that when I bring steady compassionate awareness, understanding, and choice to such recurring, painful challenges, these obstacles can become opportunities. My own LRPPs have been a doorway to a new kind of wisdom, to an opening of the heart. By looking at our own old wounds, identifying them, and being with them compassionately, we can all find healing and contribute to our world in a meaningful way. The following practice allows us to do just that so our experience can transform, and doors can open in creative and life-giving ways.

***

There are three parts to the following Breathing Through Pain Meditation. In the first step, we carefully attend to and relax into our breath. Then we become one with the sensation of breath. By doing so, we connect not only to breath but also to the interconnected flow of life itself. It is important to ground ourselves in this first stage of “being breath” while allowing breath to be part of the field and flow around us. 

In the second step, we bring attention to the center of our chest. We notice what is happening in our heart and feel whatever pain is found there right now. We notice how our body is holding that pain and how we experience it. We notice our feelings, attend to those feelings, and feel our feelings, being fully present.

In the third step, we return and expand our awareness of the sensation of breath. We let the pain in our heart be as it is and allow ourselves to immerse totally into the sensation of breath. While sensing breath, we feel ourselves being carried along by the effortless flow of our body’s breathing. We pay more and more attention to breath flowing through. Then we come to attend gently to the pain in our heart. Finally, our attention returns to the sensation of breath as part of flow.

Throughout this practice, we let go of trying to “fix” ourselves or our pain. Instead, we let the breath of life flow through the pain. In this way, we gain a wider, wiser perspective. We abandon an ego-motivated position, which itself comes out of isolation. When ego governs our relationship with the world and our LRPPs, our emphasis is on strengthening, aggrandizing, and justifying our separate sense of self. What is “I, me, or mine” is most important: the “I” who did or did not do something, the “me” who got snubbed by someone, or the “mine” that was taken away or denied. When we are in pain, we also tend to retract, contract, cut off, curl up in a ball, and separate ourselves from others. Pain that is trapped in isolation like that typically perpetuates itself. When we are stuck ruminating on our hurt feelings, that only makes things worse, like a snake biting its own tail. Pain in isolation is the very definition of suffering. When we practice the Breathing Through Pain Meditation, our pain is still there, but our suffering is less. With this practice, we connect to a wider perspective. We feel our feelings as we surrender into the web of life. Having grounded ourselves in interconnectedness, we experience the flow of life energy. We expand our awareness, letting our heart rest in its natural state.

Breathing Through Pain Meditation

Let your awareness descend into your body, right down to the ground, right down to the earth.

With a quiet, attentive mind, simply be present within your body as you allow your awareness to fill the whole space of your body right up to the top of your head.

Now allow your awareness to drop deeper into the sensations of breath, allowing your awareness to become one with the sensations of the breath stream. Allow yourself to be carried in the flow of the breath stream: breath stream flowing in with the in-breath, breath stream flowing through with the out-breath. Allow your awareness to be carried in this effortless flow, like a particle awakened in the stream.

As the breath stream continues to flow through, bring your attention to the center of your chest to the area of your heart.

Allow your awareness to drop down into this area. Notice how you are feeling in your heart right now, and notice whatever pain is in your heart. There may be a tightness, an ache, a sense of spaciousness, or numbness. Stay with the felt sense of this experience.

For just a few moments, allow yourself to merge with your suffering . . .

If you find yourself getting carried away by thoughts, by the narrative of what this is all about, relax, release, and return to the sensation of body and breath.

Now, while being with that experience, bring your attention back to the effortless flow of breath, the effortless flow of the breath stream. Back to the breath stream that flows in with the in-breath and flows through with the out-breath.

Now, open the cave of your heart to the breath stream.

With the exhale, allow the breath stream to wash through and around your heart, carrying in its flow the pain or whatever is there.

All you have to do is to let go to the breath stream, let go to the washing through of the breath stream that is carrying all life in its effortless flow.

There is so much to do that you don’t have to do. You don’t have to move the clouds in the sky, you don’t have to make the rivers move, or the honeybees find their favorite pollen flowers.

All you have to do is to allow a sense of flow to happen.

The choice is yours: you can hold on tight, or you can let go; you can release your pain, or the energy of your pain, to the breath stream, to the always effortless flowing through of the breath stream.

Let go to the breath stream that is flowing in and flowing through, carrying all into the deeper stream, for the sake of all beings, into the deeper stream.

Slowly repeat the following to yourself: “May all beings be happy, may all beings be safe, may all beings be free, and may I become what I need to become to allow this to happen.”

♦

Visit Shambhala Publications for a free audio version of this practice and more. 

Excerpted from Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom—at Last by Radhule Weininger. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. www.shambhala.com

The post A Practice for Breathing Through Pain appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When the body is suffused with easeful breath energy, we experience pleasure. This is the skillful internal pleasure that we seek to cultivate in following the Buddha’s middle path. The quality of physical ease (piti) gives rise to the mental quality of pleasure (sukkha). The body conditions the mind. The easeful breath energy, flowing throughout the body, conditions the arising of pleasure. 

In practicing mindfulness of breathing, we learn to develop our skill in an effort to strengthen and deepen the qualities of inner ease and pleasure. 

As we practice developing pleasurable abiding in the body, as we attempt to keep the mind on the enlarged field of the body, we often notice that we begin to lose energy at some point during the process. In practicing spreading, we expend a certain amount of energy, and eventually our energy level begins to decrease. In turn, our ability to keep the mind on the body may begin to diminish. We may notice, as this occurs, that the mind begins to wander. We may notice that we’re chasing after thoughts. When our energy begins to lessen, it’s usually a good idea to move our focus back to the one point, the spot at which we were feeling the breath. We return, if you will, to our home base. 

Now, using directed thought, we keep the mind on the one point. 

We may notice, after returning to a one-pointed focus, that the breath is quite easeful, more easeful than before. At this juncture, after having spread the breath energy through the body, we may find that the breath is quite refined, fine, soft, quiet. It may be very pleasant. 

We may notice that the breath—the in-breath and the out-breath—is rather short. After spreading the breath throughout the body, we don’t need to take in so much air. 

As we’re mindful of the breath, we might have a background awareness of the body; we may notice that the body is pervaded with ease. The body, at this stage, may be exceptionally easeful; it may feel very light, soft. 

After keeping the mind on the breath at the one point for some time, we may then decide to once again enlarge our awareness, making the full body the object of our mindfulness. Now, as we maintain a full body awareness and allow the breath energy to spread, pervade the body—perhaps, at this stage, we’re practicing whole body breathing—we may experience an increased concentration. That is to say, the qualities of jhana may now be more developed. The breath energy, flowing through the body, may be very smooth, easeful. There may be an even stronger quality of pleasure. The mind, given the level of pleasure, may be rather content to remain right where it is, in the body. Our interest in thinking may be negligible. Our concern about the subjects of our lives, our relationships, jobs, etc., may be minimal, perhaps non-existent. 

The Buddha describes it like this: 

There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture & pleasure born from seclusion. And as he remains thus heedful, ardent, & resolute, any memories & resolves related to the household life are abandoned, and with their abandoning his mind gathers & settles inwardly, grows unified & centered. (MN 119) 

The process of breath meditation often develops in this manner. There are many variations on the theme, but the practice, using the nomenclature of the steps, often goes something like: 1, 2, 3, 1,2 3, etc. 

It’s sometimes said—admittedly it’s an inelegant analogy—that we make money at the breath, spend it in the body; then, after we’ve spent the money, we go back to the breath, make some more money, then we go back to the body and spend it, and so on. 

As we develop our skill, we learn to become more and more adept in working with the breath energy. An important aspect of the skill, in cultivating inner pleasure, is to learn to adjust the level of the energy. It’s altogether possible, as we practice developing pleasant abiding in the body, that the energy coursing through the body may become too strong. In fact, the breath energy can become very strong. Sometimes the energy may begin to move quite rapidly, with excessive force. The energy may become jagged, rough. When the energy becomes too strong, it may be unpleasant. 

In developing our skill, we learn to adjust the energy when it becomes too strong. We learn to soften the energy. Generally, this is accomplished, quite simply, by inclining the mind; we use internal fabrication, we tell ourselves to soften the energy. We adjust the energy, using intention, in the same way that we turn a dimmer switch to adjust the brightness of an electric light. 

What we often find, as we spread breath energy, is that the energy becomes just a bit too strong. In these instances, we make just a slight adjustment. We soften the energy a fraction. We turn the dimmer switch just slightly. 

Often what’s required is a small adjustment, in order to bring the energy to precisely the right level. 

In adjusting breath energy, we look to find the level of energy that’s most pleasurable. When the flow of the breath energy is “just right,” the experience of the body becomes extremely pleasant. Pleasure flourishes. 

As we learn to develop a pleasant abiding in the body, we may spend an amount of time, in any period of meditation, simply residing in this pleasant abiding. Residing there, we feed on the qualities of ease and pleasure. We allow ourselves to take in these pleasant qualities. We feast on pleasure. We notice the desire to get up from the table, to leave aside the good food of ease and pleasure, to move on to something else, but we put that desire to the side. We resist the temptation, so prevalent in our in-a-hurry culture, to move on to the next thing. We may perhaps notice, as we feed on pleasure, a voice in the mind telling us that this is something we shouldn’t be doing, that we’re doing something wrong, that it’s wrong to take in pleasure; but we recognize these voices, we realize they’re spouting misconceptions, we don’t give in to them. We remember the value in staying where we are, in cultivating internal pleasure. We remember that in feeding on this wholesome pleasure we’re acting in tune with the dharma, we’re following the path the Buddha laid out. 

Often, as the meditation goes on, we choose to be mindful of both the breath and the body at the same time. At this stage, our awareness comprises a foreground and background. One object, either the breath or body, is in the foreground; the other is in the background. We may have a clear sense of the breath fueling the body with breath energy. The breath energy, we may notice, is soft, light, like a gentle rain. The sensations may be very, very pleasant. 

Maintaining this pleasant abiding, we allow ourselves to absorb the pleasant sensations. We notice the quality of pleasure; we note it: “Pleasure.” We allow ourselves to enjoy the pleasure. 

As we put time and effort into our practice, as we cultivate the qualities of jhana, the qualities of ease and pleasure “accumulate” in the body. Little by slowly, we absorb these qualities; they become part of our ongoing experience of the body. In the same way that the food we eat at breakfast—the oatmeal and bananas—is assimilated by the body and becomes part of the body’s physical structure, the qualities of ease and pleasure that we cultivate in meditation remain, to some extent, in the body. 

The more we cultivate the jhana qualities, the more we experience the easeful, pleasurable sensations, the deeper the qualities of ease and pleasure absorb into us. And, accordingly, they become more and more available to us, in all postures, throughout our days and nights. As the Buddha notes, this is a mark of jhana: we’re able at all times to access the qualities of ease and pleasure. In cultivating skillful internal pleasure, this is an important goal: to be able to develop a pleasant abiding in the body that is available to us as we engage in the activities of our lives. 

As we become skilled in mindfulness of breathing, we learn to feed on the qualities of ease and pleasure so that, gradually, we embody these qualities. We keep at it, we develop our meditation, so that the quality of skillful internal pleasure will continue to nourish us, as we move through life. 

The quality of skillful internal pleasure, we learn, is “good food.” It is the food that will sustain us, support us, as we meet the vicissitudes of life. It is the good food that will strengthen us, in our efforts to end our suffering and find true happiness in this life. 

As the Buddha said: 

How very happily we live, we who have nothing. We will feed on rapture like the Radiant gods. (Dhp 200) 

♦

Excerpted from Skillful Pleasure: The Buddha’s Path for Developing Skillful Pleasure © 2020 by Peter Doobinin 

The post How to Experience Pleasure in Meditation appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Welcome back for week two of Tricycle Meditation Month, our annual challenge to sit all 31 days of March.

If you’re just joining us, our Meditation Month teacher Guo Gu is leading a series of four free guided meditation videos. Guo Gu is the founder of and teacher at the Tallahassee Chan Center and the Sheng Yen Associate Professor of Chinese Buddhism at Florida State University. Each Monday, we’re releasing a new video, which builds on the previous week’s lesson.

This week, we will continue to explore the sensations in the body, using what Guo Gu calls somatic integration. After a week of practicing the progressive relaxation meditation, you may have begun to notice how the breath influences the body and how the sensations of the body influence the breath. In this video, Guo Gu asks us to focus on our awareness of these sensations and simply experience them as they unfold. He also shares some tips for settling a scattered mind and keeping track of the breath to help us as we continue to develop our meditative awareness.

Download a transcript of this talk. It has been edited for clarity.

Mark your calendar:

• Ask Guo Gu any questions about your meditation practice on Friday, March 19 at 5:00 p.m. EST. 
• Missed the first live call? Watch a replay here.

More meditation material to support your practice:

• We began Meditation Month with some very practical advice from Buddhist teacher Valerie Brown: “instructions on how to breathe when you feel like crap.”
• Could using Zoom’s “Hide Self View” feature serve as a helpful way to decenter the ego-identified self? 
• How to gently tend to your body during meditation.

See all our Meditation Month offerings here.

This week’s Meditation Month articles:

• “Accept Whatever the Mind Is Doing” by Mark Van Buren
• “Three Methods for Letting Go of Thoughts” by Haemin Sunim
• “Stop and Breathe” by Gary Gach
• “Meditation for Eco-anxiety” by Dekila Chungyalpa
• “To Drink Tea Is to Taste the Earth” by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel
• “Give Yourself a Breathing Room” by Thich Nhat Hanh

♦

The post Meditation Month 2021: Breathe & Experience appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

It’s an unusually mild and sunny day in the middle of a very gray, bitter-cold, and snowy February, the day after Parinirvana, which marks the Buddha’s departure from his body. This is a day to recall words attributed to the Buddha, handed down generation after generation as instructions for the living: Make of yourself a light. 

A well-lit life often comes about through the honest vulnerability of strife and sorrow, through monster pain and heartache, through scary encounters when you feel like crap because too much has happened too fast and for too long. I’m thinking about the last twelve months or so: my marriage coming to an end; my brother dying, then his wife; then the global pandemic; the street protests in the United States and around the world for racial and social justice; political polarization, leading to insurrection at the US Capitol; and then just when I’d mustered enough nerve to begin dating, getting dumped twice by the same guy.  

But it’s still early in the new year, and I have the Buddha’s instructions. Make of yourself a light.

Those words point toward an inner direction of transformation, toward finding a channel of light and generosity, a channel of love, and another channel for the outrage, anger, sadness, and despair. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has written more than one hundred books and offered countless dharma talks all over the world, and all of them contain a very basic message: The energy and practice of mindfulness, concentration, and insight help us embrace suffering, calm the body and mind, and be peace and create peace in the world. When faced with suffering, Nhat Hanh advises us to take very good care of afflictive emotions that can overtake us and to return to the body, the breath. Sometimes I think of inviting these emotions in for a cup of tea, of getting to really know them. There is something empowering and connecting in recognizing the universality of suffering, not the sameness of suffering, each is unique. It is knowing that, like me, everyone faces moments when life feels brutal, when we are hurt and want to retreat into tiny-heartedness, and at those times, like the weather things change and the sun breaks through overcast skies.  

The practice of mindful breathing is an act of self-love, a declaration of gratitude for this life, and a political act of empowerment in which we choose the present moment, even when that moment is filled with mourning. The golden rule of grief, one of the many lessons I relearned over the last twelve months, is that grief contains love. Loss contains love. Grief is an expression of the loss of something meaningful, which means I had, at least for a time, the opportunity to experience love—true, real, meaningful, heartfelt love. 

And again, the Buddha’s instructions: Make of yourself a light.

In the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village we learn breathing as a form of art, the art of mindful living, which is particularly important for moments when life feels turbulent. Mindful breathing can be done throughout the day. In the morning as you get dressed, set aside one or two minutes to stop, pause, and breathe. Before you eat breakfast, again take a moment to breathe. Throughout the day, step away from your devices and pause to breathe mindfully. Go outside. Look up at the sky and connect with your breath. Before you go to bed, return to your breathing and feel the breath. This way of breathing is an exquisite reminder that the breath is an elemental gift of life. This is not an intellectual exercise but a full embodiment of humanness. 

The practice can be done in four parts:

• Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know that I am breathing out.
• Breathing in, I follow the in breath all the way. Breathing out, I follow the out breath all the way. 
• Breathing in, I am aware of my body. Breathing out, I recognize that I have a body, and I am so grateful.
• Breathing in, I recognize tension in my body. Breathing out, I release tension, calming my body.

Breathing in this way we make a light of ourselves. Shine on, brightly.

The post The Lightness of Breathing appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

It’s Day 1 of Tricycle Meditation Month, our annual challenge to commit to a daily practice throughout the month of March, and we’re getting started with the first of four free guided meditation videos led by our Meditation Month teacher, Guo Gu.

Guo Gu is the founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center and a professor of Chinese Buddhism at Florida State University. For Meditation Month, he is leading this four-part series that explores the Chan (Jp., Zen) teaching of silent illumination. A new video will be released each week introducing an approach to meditation and building on the previous weeks’ teachings. These instructions and tips from Guo Gu are designed to help you develop a regular practice and connect to your experience at each moment. 

In this first video, Guo Gu gives instructions for relaxing the body and connecting with the breath. This foundational teaching will create a sense of stability in our practice that will last throughout this month-long commitment to meditation. While we tend to spend a lot of our time living inside our heads, Guo Gu asks us to shift our awareness into the tactile sensations of the body, inviting in awareness of the “undercurrent tones” that shape our experiences. 

Download a transcript of this talk. It has been edited for clarity.

Meditation Month is free for all participants. Tricycle is here to support your journey with helpful articles, two live calls with Guo Gu on Saturday, March 6 at 12:00 p.m. EST and Friday, March 19 at 5:00 p.m. EST, a Facebook discussion group, an interactive group on the Insight Timer app, and other free resources for meditation and Buddhist practice. Visit tricycle.org/mm21 to learn more.

This week’s Meditation Month articles:

• “The Lightness of Breathing” by Valerie Brown
• “How to Be in the Body (Without Jumping Out of Your Skin)” by Scott Tusa
• “Zoom’s No Self View” by Sumi Loundon Kim
• “You Are a Control Freak” by Ajahn Brahm
• “Being in Body Time” by Lama Willa Blythe Baker
• “Taking and Sending in Difficult Times” by Ken McLeod

To keep up with all of our Meditation Month offerings, sign up for our newsletter using the form below.

♦

The post Meditation Month 2021: Relax & Connect appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When I first started practicing meditation, my teacher taught me that the breath—ever-present and unconditional—is the link between body and mind. When we place our full attention on the breath, we pull ourselves out of the past, away from the future, and directly into the present moment. Or at least that’s how the common instruction goes. But using the breath to enter the proverbial here-and-now is easier said than done.

The first few times I sat to meditate, I tried to focus on the steady rise and fall of the chest and the sensation of the air passing in and out through the nostrils. When my mind wandered away, I noted the distraction and returned my attention back to the breath. It didn’t take long for me to notice that my inhalations felt short and shallow, like I wasn’t taking in very much air. I also experienced tightness and congestion in my chest and throat. These sensations weren’t surprising—my breathing had been fraught since I was a kid. Growing up, I often experienced scary bouts of shortness of breath and wheezing. I managed these breathing issues by distracting myself and avoiding the activities that aggravated them. As I got older, I hoped they would go away on their own.

Related: Receiving the Breath 

Alas, as I progressed with my meditation practice, the distressed breathing remained right there to greet me. Coming face-to-face with my breathing did not bring me into the coveted present moment; it dredged up memories of coughing during soccer practice and waking up in the middle of the night gasping for air. I began to lose faith in my ability to meditate. With my breath causing so much anxiety, how could I ever use it to deepen my practice?

Around this time I began to study pranayama, a yogic discipline that offers many different techniques for steadying and controlling the breath. I discovered two very useful practices to prepare for meditation. These techniques are especially helpful for those who feel anxious or feel tightness in their chests and air passages. Both practices can bring equanimity to the breath and a sensation of expansiveness to the chest, preparing one to sit in a steady and composed manner.

Related: Working and Playing with the Breath

Stabilize the Breath with Equal-Part Breathing

Prolonged anxiety and stress can cause irregular breathing patterns like sighing, yawning, and huffing. As these disruptive habits find their way into our meditation practice, we may discover it very difficult to steady the mind. To reestablish balanced breathing prior to meditation, try the following modified practice of sama vrtti, or equal-part breathing.

In sama vrtti, we produce inhalations that last the same duration as exhalations. To begin, sit up very tall in order to lengthen your torso as much as possible. Take a deep breath in through the nose and exhale, also entirely through the nose. Then start to inhale through the nose as you count up to four, stretching your inhalation all the way to the end of the count at a pace that feels comfortable to you. As you exhale through the nose, count to four again at the same pace, stretching your exhalation all the way to the end. Repeat this cycle several times or for as long as you need until you begin to feel the breath evening out.

Create Space with a Three-Part Breath

I’ve found that the practice of viloma, sometimes described as a three-part breath, can alleviate sensations of restriction in the chest and torso. In viloma, a practitioner alternately deepens and pauses her inhalation for short periods of time, which encourages the chest and rib cage to gradually expand.

To begin, either sit very upright or recline on your back. Take a few deep, even, and steady breaths. Then slowly inhale over a count of three, drawing in your breath so much that the lower abdomen expands. After the third count, hold the breath for two counts. Then, inhale into the lungs and lower chest for another three counts, feeling the rib cage expand outward. Hold the breath for another two counts. Now, inhale for another three counts, filling the very upper region of the chest just below the collarbone. Hold the breath for five counts. Then, over a ten-count exhalation, slowly and evenly release the breath through the nose. Repeat this cycle several more times, continuing at a pace that feels comfortable to you.

After many cycles of this practice, the breath gets deeper and the chest feels more open. That sensation of spaciousness in the body produces a similar effect on the mind: thoughts will seem less congested and tangled than they did prior to the exercise.

When we’re trying to meditate, the breath—especially if it’s labored or irregular—can feel like yet another hurdle to clear. After much practice, I’ve learned that difficulty in breathing isn’t reason to move away from the practice or to give up. It is, rather, the best opportunity to become more intimate with the breath. It’s also a reminder for us to take the time we need to prepare the body for meditation. By doing so, we invite the breath to become our closest ally—one we can rely on to inform us about and eventually lead us back to the spaciousness right here and now.

[This story was first published in 2015.]

The post Breathe Easy appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The breath is a restful meditation topic. But as you explore its potential, you find that it offers more. It can provide you with tools for understanding and overcoming the mind’s tendency to create unnecessary stress and suffering for itself. In this retreat, based on his new book, With Each & Every Breath, Thanissaro Bhikkhu offers guidance on how to work proactively with the breath in a way that helps you to reap its deeper benefits in both body and mind.

Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu is an American Theravada Buddhist monk of the Dhammayut Order and currently serves as the abbot of the Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County. He is the author of Handful of Leaves, Wings to Awakening, Noble Strategy, and the recent With Each & Every Breath, as well as extensive translations of the Pali Canon.

The post Working and Playing with the Breath appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.