1989-07_01 Anapanasati_ Full Awareness of Breath Series - Tape 17 - Q&A 1

Talk: 19890701-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-anapanasati_full_awareness_of_breath_series_tape_17-33820 Start_time: 00:25:10 Display_question: How and why do I use the breath in meditation practice? Keyword_search: anapanasati, satipatthana, awareness, body, mental activity, mindfulness, body, feelings, mind objects, phenomena, dharma, Vipassana, Buddha, sixteen contemplations, focus, breath, breathing, joy, peace, length, concentration, rapture, impermanence, feeling, causes, conditions, interrelated, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ajahn Buddhadasa, sponatenous, drill, practice, drudgery, beautiful, joyful, Suzuki Roshi, whole body, parts Question_content: Questioner: Right. I sort of realized you could be doing sitting… <inaudible> If there's a lot of mental activity… <inaudible> Then it becomes awareness of the body… That’s not chaotic. Larry: Does everyone follow what's being said? Questioner: But the underlying question is, is that as okay… <inaudible>? Larry: Yeah, I would say if that's how—yes, it can be. But let me go a little bit more doctrine, not too much. To study anapanasati, you're also studying satipatthana. If you're going to practice Vipassana, you have to know a few of these words. Satipatthana is the, that particular teaching of the Buddha is where most of our practices come from, perhaps all of them in Vipassana. And it has to do with the development, the arousing of what are called the four foundations of mindfulness: mindfulness of the body, of feelings, of the mind, and of sometimes called mind objects or phenomena or dhammas or dharmas. And that's what we're doing in anapanasati. Break_line: If you notice, we've gone through sixteen separate contemplations, but they were what are called four tetrads. The first four had to do with the body; the second four had to do with feelings; the third four had to do with the mind; and the last four had to do with what are called dhammas. And that's exactly the way the Satipatthana Sutra is lined up. And so, all we're doing is we're using the breath to develop the four foundations of mindfulness. I am going to get to what you’re… Questioner: (inaudible) Well, as I was sitting, though, it seemed like, oh, this is what I was doing before. But the difference, in a more Vipassana or <inaudible>… Larry: Okay. Questioner: <inaudible> Larry: What? Questioner: <inaudible> Larry: Okay. One way to practice is that you use the breath just as just what you said, and that you're just, for example, let's say you want to practice contemplation thirteen on impermanence. If you're using this suit as a guideline, you're always using the breath no matter what you're doing. That goes without saying. Does everyone know that by now? It doesn't matter. One way or another, you're with the breathing. You're always in touch with the breathing. That's the simplicity and the power of it. It's also hard unless you finally decide that this is really what I want to do. Break_line: So, one way to practice would be, and this is what I meant by you start orchestrating and working out your own way of practicing is while breathing in and breathing out, you contemplate impermanence. And that I've encouraged you to do. Is everyone clear about that? Now, you can do it by taking a specific contemplation. Let's say you decide that I'm just going to take the length of the breath. So, while breathing in and breathing out, using that as an anchor, you also watch the breath. In this case, it's the same that it's not really an anchor because you're using the breath as well. It's both the anchor and it's the object. You're seeing the breath become more deep, perhaps more fine, and then perhaps you have some kind of a troubled thought and suddenly it becomes more shallow and agitated. Break_line: Now, see it all depends what your practice agenda is. If you've set for yourself the studying of impermanence and you've taken just that one, the first two contemplations on length of breathing. If that's what you've set for yourself as your practice, then—and you're studying impermanence—then anything having to do with the length of the breath is an occasion for understanding impermanence. The length of the breath is really secondary. That's what's used to help you see change, if you've set that for yourself. Or it might be piti, joy or sukha, very peace. Let's say you get to that and you find the mind is filled with lots of peace. Now, if your contemplation is impermanence—remember the first time around we've been talking about when we get to that, we just want to develop peace. Sukha comes out of rapture, which comes out of samadhi, which is the first four. Is everyone following me? If you're not, tell me. Break_line: So, the first time around we're developing things so that we can have them to contemplate in the first place. You can't contemplate sukha if you don't have it. You can't contemplate rapture if you don't have it. So, you have to generate it. You generate it through a concentrated mind, through samadhi. Break_line: So, let's say something like extreme peace arises in the mind. As you know, that can be something we study in and of itself. But if you've set for yourself studying impermanence and you want to use impermanence on the peace, so you can see impermanence anywhere. So, let's say you have a lot of sukha in the mind, but now you observe the sukha, but mainly from the point of view of seeing change in it. It becomes very happy, very peaceful. Oh, even more peaceful. Then suddenly it becomes less peaceful. It may then become agitated. Break_line: But now what you're studying, basically you're in the second contemplation, the contemplation of feeling: vedana. Now, in studying feeling, if you've set for yourself impermanence in that particular meditation, the feelings are interesting insofar as they are the field from which we can learn about impermanence. We see that sukha doesn't last. It becomes more intense or less intense, or it becomes agitation after a while. Do you see what I'm getting at? Break_line: Okay, now that's up to you. That can be something that you decide on because you're drawn to it. It can be something that you work out in collaboration with a teacher because they feel this would be good for you right now. So that anything I'm saying can apply to any of the contemplations. If you're drawn to a particular contemplation, you can use it in its own right. You can also use it to develop impermanence, an understanding of impermanence. And then out of impermanence can come an understanding of anatta or no self. That is, when you study, let's say you study the same sukha, actually any of them. Let's say it was long and you were just studying the length of the breath. You can decide to study the length of the breath from the point of view of anatta. I hear all this talk about there's no self. What the? And then let's say you've gotten a fair amount of doctrine and there's some degree of intellectual understanding. Break_line: You say, “Okay, I'm going to see if I can understand that. And I'll use length of breath because, if what the Buddha is saying is true, that there's no ownership of anything, there's no solid core to which anything's happening, including length of breath, then you can learn that anywhere too, in any of the sixteen contemplations, even such a preliminary one as length of breath. Okay, so now let's say you're watching the length of the breath, and it gets longer, and it gets shorter, and it goes through all those oscillations. It may start off as impermanence, that one I've talked about a lot. Break_line: But you can also study it from the point of view of anatta. And there, as you watch the breath change, you can begin to see that there is no breather. There's no one who owns the length of the breath. The breaths just change. They become long and short based on causes and conditions. The mind gets sad, the breath will become shorter. If you're very tired physically, the breath will become more shallow. Suddenly, you become very inspired. You have a vision of the Buddha. You want to go to Burma, Thailand, to meditate. The breath gets very deep and full. You're happy. The mind can affect the breath, the body. You start to see everything is interrelated. Break_line: But let's say you've just taken, you've set this for yourself, length of breath. And you want to study anatta because you're ready for it. You wouldn't do it if you're not ready for it, it won't interest you and you won't fully even know what you're looking for. So, let's say the person is ready for it. You begin to see that the breath keeps changing, but there's no one who's doing the changing. A thought may come up and say with the thought might say, “Oh, my breath is so nice and long and deep and full and fine right now.” And, if you grasp onto it, it creates the sense that there is somebody who is breathing long or short. Break_line: But the job of wisdom, of discernment, of panya is to be able to take a look at that and to see that's just thoughts, there's something in them, that's another thing that comes to the mind. And the thought says, “This is my breath. It's long now, it's short now.” And so you start to be able to separate out. You start to see this is the length of the breath. This is something in the mind that claims it. But when you really look at it, all there is, is the breath is getting longer and shorter and shorter and longer and shorter. And the mind may be making up the ownership of it, but you start to see through that. So, you can learn the most profound truth on the most preliminary exercise. Remember, length of breath was when we, that was what we began with, basically to kind of, it's an easy one to familiarize ourselves with breathing and a bit of discernment and also seeing that the breath is a powerful conditioner of the body. I'm just reviewing what we've covered. Break_line: Okay, now, let's say someone like you comes along. Okay, and you say, “Well, I don't want to do any of those specific contemplations.” Let's say in an interview, I might say, “Well, any one of them really something you want to work on?” “No, they were all nice. Nothing in particular. I was interested in all of them.” But let's say you say what you just told me. “But you know, in my last sitting, what I really felt drawn to is that as I was following the breath, just whatever was most vivid, that's what I went to. And, of course, each one of them corresponds to one of the contemplations. It has to be either in the body or it’s feelings or it's the mind or dharma; it's got to be one of those four because we've defined it that way. So, then your practice might be “beautiful practice,” breathing in—that's what I do a lot of—breathing in and breathing out, and whatever comes up, you're with it. Break_line: Now, if you want it to be Vipassana, then whatever comes up is seen from the point of view of, let's say, impermanence. But you don't have any particular field. It's the whole field. So that whatever is more vivid, that's what you see. And sometimes it's the mind, sometimes it's the body and so forth. There's virtue setting a specific contemplation sometimes by delimiting the field and saying, “I'm just going to concentrate on long and short breath.” By delimiting it, sometimes you can be much more steady and concentrated. Actually, to do what you're suggesting in a sustained way, it's probably best for the samadhi to be pretty steady and predictable. Questioner: <inaudible> Larry: Okay, let's use this whole notion of how we can orchestrate, that all—it's like playing a musical instrument. Let's say you start off with some samadhi work. Did you? Something to… What did you do? Questioner: Actually, this time I had awareness of the body. Larry: The whole body breathing. Okay. And the mind became a bit more calm? Questioner: Yes. Larry: Okay. And then this is what happened naturally? Questioner: Then more, moved into feeling, differences in feeling. And then I found, since there was a lot of thinking coming in at a certain point, that it was useful to change to that conversation. Larry: Exactly. So that's a very beautiful practice. And let's say you now… Questioner: I do need to something at the beginning… Larry: Well, you see, if you don't have adequate samadhi, you'll just get lost in all that stuff. You'll just be daydreaming and drift, being pulled around by it, not really observing it. So, let's say you do what you are suggesting. In fact, that becomes what you do for the remainder of the sitting. And right after that, maybe your knee starts to hurt. And so then it's the contemplation of the body while breathing in and breathing out. And then suddenly you become very sad. You contemplate—time out. You contemplate the sadness while breathing in and breathing out. And then suddenly you find that you're going out of focus. That's what happened? Questioner: Yes. Larry: Okay. So then in this musical, this keyboard we're playing, you fine tune the instrument. Now you come back to what's best. It might be to come right up into the nostrils or just the whole-body breathing, if that's what's working for you. To get the mind focused again so that it's fit to investigate. Yeah, so that you can have it's like anything else, like in fencing or martial arts or classical dance. The first part can be a lot of drudgery, you know, drill where you learn basic moves over and over and over and over again until finally it's so internalized. Or the Hatha yoga asanas that then you become what is called spontaneous. And we see great people at what they do, and they're incredibly spontaneous. What we forget sometimes is the years of very hard work that they put in so that they could just play. We just want to do the play part. Okay, now, with the right attitude, it's all enjoyable, even though it may be hard. But this is the sense of the sutra. That's why it becomes very individualized. Break_line: If you read Thich Nhat Hanh. And now I would suggest you do read, if you're still interested in this. Thich Nhat Hanh’s book on contemplation of the breath is excellent. And it's very good to read that in conjunction with Buddhadasa, Ajahn Buddhadasa's Mindfulness with Breathing. There's overlap and they both are somewhat different. Both read together, I think would give you a very nice picture of the sutra. Some of it will review what we've already done and some will go into areas that we haven't had time to cover. Questioner: <inaudible> Larry: Yeah, they're both under Theravadin Buddhism. Questioner: Can I also ask for clarification? Larry: Sure. Questioner: On the contemplation of the whole-body breathing. Can you say a litte more about that. I think what I was doing was just an awareness of the whole body while breathing. And then I realized I could locate that breathing anywhere. Larry: That's right. Questioner: Either here or here. But it wasn't just, for me it wasn't feeling the whole body breathing. But it could be. Couldn’t it be? Larry: Let me again go back to our when we covered that in some exercise. Questioner: I don’t remember that. Larry: That's all right, I'll review it. It's light. It's light. There are different interpretations. I'm going to give you the one that to me makes the most sense. Although it's not that others are wrong. They're alternative views and they're also useful. What that one may be saying is it's just as the Buddha puts it. It's like, he meant what he said. It's really quite self-evident. It says, “Being aware of the whole body, the yogi breathes in. Being aware of the whole body, the yogi breathes out.” It sounds pretty straightforward. Some of the commentators have done with that, something that goes to me quite far away from that. Break_line: So now what that means is you're sensitive to the whole body. That isn't a pinpointed kind of attention because it's too comprehensive. So you're aware of the whole body. It's a kind of a mode of attention that takes in a larger space, larger form, while breathing in and breathing out. And so, while being sensitive to the whole body, you're experiencing the breath wherever you experience it. Break_line: Now, there's a concern for the breath. If you remember, we did exercises, I don't know if you were there or not. First we went down to the abdomen and we felt it going this way. And then we felt the breath on the sides, and then we felt the breath in the back. We went into the pelvis, we went into the chest. And everyone feels it here or most do. Then we start to feel it on the sides and we felt it in the back, into the throat, into the nose, and kind of like Humpty Dumpty, we took pieces of the breath. And then what you can do, and you're welcome to do this from time to time, then you try to be aware of the whole breath, just sort of like the whole thing's happening. And the exercise opens that up. But if you just keep practicing, your awareness will open it up. You'll start to feel much more sensitive to the breathing. So now what you're doing is sensitive to the whole body. You experience the in breath. We're not locating it anywhere. Just wherever you feel the inbreath, sensitive to the whole body, you experience the outbreath. Break_line: That particular one is probably what Suzuki Roshi is teaching in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Some of you like that book, so reread it. See if it doesn't sound like that's what he's teaching. And so that can become a wisdom practice as well, as you sort of integrate samadhi and Vipassana by calming the mind while being very alert and seeing change and everything happening. But is that adequate? Questioner: Mhm. Larry: One final doctrinal piece. Some of this may not interest you, but maybe sometime in the future it will. “Not only is the anapanasati, <audio is sped up> the final steps are developed if you do these sixteen steps because they are concerned with the body, feelings, et cetera. Now, if you do that, what comes out of that are what is called the seven factors of awakening. Or sometimes you'll hear it called the seven factors of enlightenment. These, in a sense, are when perfected, when those come together, the possibility of deep wisdom is right there and you're also developing those.” And I'll just skip through this a little. “Moreover, if they are developed and continuously practiced, the four foundations of mindfulness, which is what we're practicing, using the breath to do that, will lead to perfect abiding in the seven factors of awakening. How is this so?” This is the Buddha speaking. “When the yogi”—listen carefully to this, even if you don't know all the technical meanings of this, get a feeling for what's being said here because in a sense, these are the energies that come together and produce enlightenment. They bring you to a point where, there are different views on it. One view is it helps you open the window and then, whether the breeze comes in or not <audio cuts out>… “When the yogi can maintain without distraction the practice of observing the body in the body, the feelings in the feelings, the mind in the mind, and the objects of mind in the objects of mind…” That's the four satipatthanas. Break_line: Now, when they repeat them, feelings in the feelings, et cetera, that means that you focus right in on it. You don't stray if you're contemplating feelings. First of all, there's no separation as a union of the knowing and what you're contemplating—body, feelings, whatever. But also you're not straying into any other contemplation like the body. If you're with the feelings, you really penetrate into feelings. “When the yogi can maintain without distraction the practice of observing the body and the body, feelings and the feelings, the mind and the mind, and the objects of mind in the objects of the mind, persevering, fully awake, clearly understanding his state, gone beyond all attachment and aversion to this life, with unwavering steadfast, imperturbable, meditative stability, he will attain the first factor of awakening, namely full attention.” That's, in a sense, the perfection of mindfulness. Break_line: When this factor is developed, it will come to perfection and then similar presentation regarding investigation, energy, rapture, peace, and finally concentration and equanimity. So, those factors we're developing, if you've never heard of this, you're developing those factors and they have to be fully developed and coordinated. And that also comes from the full development of the sixteen contemplations. It's really, in a sense, another way of talking about the same thing. Questioner: <inaudible> Larry: What? Questioner: <inaudible> Larry: Not really, not really, although I think, it is something I wanted to talk about. I'd rather wait and make sure that whatever is on your mind, let's take up plenty to do next. Unless someone has anything on, if you have anything on your mind, I'd rather hear that. Nothing? End_time: 00:48:29