Awareness of the Breath

Awareness of the Breath

This meditation helps to slow down the busyness in our lives by focusing on our breath and bringing more peace and stillness within our mind. This can be done as a meditation session and is also used to still the mind before reflecting on more analytical meditations.

Begin by sitting in a way that is most comfortable but also most conducive for doing meditation.

Have your legs crossed either in the full lotus or half lotus position or whatever way is most comfortable for you to place your legs.

Have your hands resting on your lap, right hand on top of the left, right fingers on top of the left fingers, palms facing upwards and the two thumbs touching, making a triangular shape with your hands.

Don’t press your arms against the side of your body but leave some space for the air to circulate and let your shoulders relax.

Have your back straight. Imagine your vertebrae being like coins and make this stack of coins very straight and even. Or imagine there is a string attached to the top of the your head and someone is pulling it from above, making your back straight.

Have your eyes left open a little bit with your gaze downwards on your lap or on the floor in front of you.

Your mouth and jaw are relaxed, don’t press your teeth together but leave them loose. Have your mouth closed and place the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth behind the upper teeth.

Have your head gently tilted downwards just a little bit. Let your body relax in the position.

To relax the body first feel the top of your head and let a feeling of relaxation develop in the top of your head, let the top of your head be relaxed.

Then imagine that relaxed feeling travelling down from the top of your head and down through your whole head, letting your whole head relax.

Relaxing your forehead, your eyes, your face, the sides and back of your head; and the inside of your head, your skull, and your brain.

Let the feeling of relaxation penetrate every cell, every atom, every tiny particle of your head. Let it continue to travel down and relax your neck and throat.

Then into your shoulders, the relaxed feeling flows into your shoulders, relaxing your shoulders.

Then let it travel down your back; let your whole back become relaxed.

Now the front of your body: let the relaxed feeling travel down to the front part of your body, your chest, your abdomen, relaxing all the internal organs and muscles as well.

This relaxed feeling travels down into the upper parts of your legs and your knees and the lower parts of the legs and then ankles and feet and all the way down to your toes.

Allow the relaxed feeling travel from your shoulders down your arms, relax the upper part of the arms and the lower parts of the arms, then wrists and fingers.

Do your best to keep your body relaxed for the remaining time of this meditation, don’t let it become tense again.

Be relaxed and let your breathing be natural. Let your breath in and out in a natural rhythm.

Bring to mind a positive reason for doing the meditation.

Have the wish that this meditation will be beneficial for yourself and others - that it will help to bring about a greater peace and happiness, as well as more positive thoughts and feelings.

Now focus your mind, your awareness, on your breathing.

There are two places that are recommended for doing this. One is at the nostrils where the air is coming in and out of the body. You may actually feel the sensation of the air just passing in and out of the nostrils or even if you can’t feel it keep your mind, your awareness, at that place, being aware of your breath, going in and going out.

The other place you can focus on is the abdomen, which is moving in and out with each breath. You can feel the sensation of your abdomen moving in and moving out with each breath. Choose one of those two places and decide to keep your mind at that place, being aware of the sensations with each breath.

Any time your mind wanders away from this place, watching the breath at that place, gently bring it back.

Disengage from whatever else your mind has become distracted by, or involved with, the thoughts or the sounds or the feelings in your body. Once you realise that is happening, gently disengage your mind from the other object and bring it back to the breath.

You might have to do this many times, again and again but be patient with yourself. Just keep bringing your mind back each time it wanders away from the place you are focussed on, watching your breath.

Some people find to have better concentration it’s helpful to count the breath. Watch each full breath, each inhalation and exhalation and count each breath as one.

Say to yourself, breathing in, breathing out – one; breathing in, breathing out – two and so on, up to ten and then start at one again when you reach ten.

If your mind becomes completely distracted from the breath while you are counting to ten, once that happens then start again at one. See if you can get to ten breaths; keep your mind focussed on your breathing for ten breaths, without wandering away.

Just keep doing that over and over. If it’s helpful to count then count or if you could keep your mind focused on the breathing without counting, that’s okay.

Keep your body relaxed. Keep your breathing normal, natural and keep your mind focussed on the breathing, watching each breath go in and out. Bring the mind back to the breath each time it wanders away.

Before opening your eyes to conclude this session, remember the positive thought we had at the beginning of the meditation, wanting it to be beneficial for others and ourself. By doing the meditation we’ve created some positive energy, what we call merit in Buddhism. This is the cause of happiness and the cause of good experiences. It’s good to share this merit with others.

At the beginning of the meditation we have the thought to do the meditation to benefit others and ourselves. Bring that thought back into our mind and mentally dedicate the positive energy or merit you created by doing this meditation to that same goal or purpose.

May this be the cause of greater peace, happiness and benefit both to others and ourselves.

When you feel ready you can open your eyes and relax.
This meditation has been made available with gratitude from the Foundation for the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) "How to Meditate" module of their Discovering Buddhism Home Study Program. click here

You can let Dekyi-Lee lead you through this meditation by ordering the Practical Meditation 1 CD.click here