from The
Breath of
Awakening: A Guide to
Liberation Through Anapanasati Mindfulness
of Breathing
by
Namgyal Rinpoche
"Mindfulness of
Breathing"
Sitting can be
short and frequent: twenty, thirty, or forty
minutes each, or one hour
- the normal length of a meditation
session. It is most important to
follow the natural rhythm, to
be natural. Ideally, in retreat, the
natural rhythm of a sitting is
usually one hour. Actually, the hour is
divided into three
stages consisting of five, fifty and five minutes
each: the
beginning, middle and end of the session. The first five
minutes is for establishing a balanced posture and stating your
aspiration. You must also establish calm detachment and
non-clinging
awareness at the beginning so that you will be
able to objectively
observe what takes place during the main
body of the practice. The next
fifty minutes is focused on the
meditation subject, in this case,
Mindfulness of Breathing.
The last five
minutes is spent on a review of the meditation
session; you lightly
recall what you experienced. This is best
done in order from the
beginning of the period of practice to
its end, but it can also be
recalled from end to beginning. You
can review the practice using the
four foundations of
mindfulness: body, feeling, mind states and
phenomena. Using
each of these categories, recall what took place. For
instance,
briefly note what happened physically in the meditation.
There is a whole range of body messages, including those of
the senses,
which may come through: tension, itching, jerking,
tingling, streaming,
heat, cold etc. Develop direct awareness
of the body, its shifts and
changes within each session.
The next
category is awareness of feeling. This is not emotion
but your feeling
evaluation response to life which
continuously fluctuates. You have
good feelings, bad feelings
and neutral feelings. This is going on all
the time. In review
recall the pleasurable, unpleasurable or neutral
feelings that
took place throughout the meditation. Because they are
moving so quickly note the predominant feelings first; perhaps
there
were pleasant feelings to begin with, then unpleasant,
then pleasant or
neutral. Gradually you will become aware of
the more subtle changes.
The third
category is awareness of mental states. Recall the
overall quality,
colour or flavour of the mind during the
meditation. For example, was
it dull, angry, blissful, heavy,
restless, calm, light, jealous,
expansive? You may experience
frustration in tracking all the shifts of
the mind but eventually
it will slow down and you will be able to note
more quickly
what is taking place.
The last
category to recall is awareness of dhamma. This is
usually
translated as "objects of the mind' or 'phenomena'.
These include a
whole range of inner sensorial experiences,
signs, symbols and
insights. The experience of body, feeling,
mind and phenomena is
intricately interwoven so it is not
surprising if it is difficult to
untangle. However, as you begin
to develop awareness of each area, your
discrimination of
what is actually going on will gradually become
clearer.