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Conciencia de la respiración
Hold not Have
Following the tradition of Thích Nhất Hạnh, we take the earliest practical instruction of the Buddha as the foundation for all other practice. Not because of its age, but because those first, clear insights into our shared nature came along before there was decoration or complexity. It is very simple. It is enough to breathe and to know that you are breathing.
That is how you begin. The first lines of the Anapanasati Sutta on the Full Awareness of Breathing are not the first rung on a ladder. Maybe they are steps in a dance or along a path. One step completes the previous step, and each step predicts the one that follows, as a seed predicts the tree.
Breathing in a long breath, I know I am breathing in a long breath; breathing out a long breath, I know I am breathing out a long breath.
Breathing in a short breath, I know I am breathing in a short breath; breathing out a short breath, I know I am breathing out a short breath.
Inhale and exhale, gather and release. What could be more natural than breathing? We breathe in with engagement, reaching to meet it with our awareness; then, opening the hand of the mind, we allow the newfound awareness to simply exist without grasping. “I am breathing: breathing is.” The first step on a path is made with volition, so that the second step may enjoy the ease of continuation.
The second couplet: aware of the body, present in the body. With simple recognition, we return to this physical place in this moment of time. The third: joyful (engaged), happy (without attachment). The fourth: aware of thoughts (touching them with awareness), unattached to those thoughts (without judgment). Each couplet is like a breath in itself, filling and realizing, releasing and being, waves on the shore, wind playing through leaves, living bodies composing and decomposing, notions assembled and crumbling with the passage of a moment.
Here is the complete set of exercises in this teaching:
Meditation on the Body:
Breathing in a long breath, I know I am breathing in a long breath; breathing out a long breath, I know I am breathing out a long breath.
Breathing in a short breath, I know I am breathing in a short breath; breathing out a short breath, I know I am breathing out a short breath.
Breathing in, I am aware of my whole body; breathing out, I am aware of my whole body.
Breathing in, I calm my whole body; breathing out, I calm my whole body.
Meditation on the Feelings:
Breathing in, I feel joyful; breathing out I feel joyful.
Breathing in, I feel happy; breathing out, I feel happy.
Breathing in, I am aware of my mental formations; breathing out, I am aware of my mental formations.
Breathing in, I calm my mental formations; breathing out, I calm my mental formations.
Meditation on the Mind:
Breathing in, I am aware of my mind; breathing out, I am aware of my mind.
Breathing in, I make my mind happy; breathing out, I make my mind happy.
Breathing in, I concentrate my mind; breathing out, I concentrate my mind.
Breathing in, I liberate my mind; breathing out, I liberate my mind.
Meditation on the Objects of Mind:
Breathing in, I observe the impermanent nature of all dharmas (or phenomena); breathing out, I observe the impermanent nature of all dharmas.
Breathing in, I observe the disappearance of desire; breathing out, I observe the disappearance of desire.
Breathing in, I observe cessation; breathing out, I observe cessation.
Breathing in, I observe letting og; breathing out, I observe letting go.
Begin with an inhalation. An inhalation brings the world into us so that we may hold it, so that it becomes part of us. Exhaling, we release what we have embraced, and allow ourselves to mix with the world around us. Considering the couplets again as circles within circles, we could shorten the exercises as below. With a word, your mind reaches for a concept; when you let the concept go, the reality remains.
Breathing: is.
Body: is.
Joy: is.
Mental formation: is.
Mind: is.
Concentration: is.
Impermanence: is.
Cessation: is.
The steps on the path to full awareness are distinct, but they are not separate: each step contains within it the entire journey, intention and realization. Aware that I am breathing in, I am letting go; making my mind happy, I calm the body; aware of the impermanent nature all dharmas, I am aware of my constructed thoughts.
It is not always necessary to practice the sixteen exercises in order. Practicing mindfulness of the body helps to us become present, and may be repeated every day. Or you might prefer to give attention to one of the exercises for several days or months.
Nothing that we hold can we have. We practice the art of holding without having.
The Establishments of Mindfulness
Each individual line of the sutta on the Full Awareness of Breathing contains an inbreath and an outbreath, and in itself completes a circle. Each line is also paired with the next, the first of the couplet a gathering in and the second a letting go, a holding-not-having. These two lines together complete a larger circle that contains the first.
Each set of four lines ‒ two couplets taken together ‒ contemplate the gentle opening and liberation of one of the foundations of mindfulness, called an Establishment of Mindfulness. Breath by breath we allow the petals of the flower to unfold, and then it quietly to smile at how beautiful a flower can be.
There are sixteen individual breaths that make up the sutta, eight cycles of holding and releasing, and four sequences that invite the Establishments of Mindfulness. In each Establishment of Mindfulness, the one who practices learns to abide, to Be without Being, to act without acting. He or she observes the body while in the body, together-with, not separate-from. She or he observes the feelings while feeling them, the mind while the mind is active, and the objects of mind while conscious of those objects of mind.
Click the headings below to read more from The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching :
being the breath
aware of the body
being the body
We observe non-dualistically, fully in our body even as we observe it. When we sit, we know we are sitting. When we stand, walk or lie down we know we are standing, rallying our lying down. This practice is called “mere recognition”.
The second way the Buddha taught us to practice mindfulness of the body in the body is to recognize all of the body’s parts, from the tops of our heads to the stores of our feet. With our mindfulness we touch our nose, mouth, arms, heart, lungs, blood and so on. The love and care of this meditation can do the work of healing.
The third method…. is to see the elements that comprise it: earth, water, fire and air. “Earth element” refers to things that are solid. We meditate on the fact that our body is more than 70% water. For life to be possible, there must be heat. “Breathing in, I dwell deeply in the present moment.” When I discovered the Discourse on the Full Awareness of Breathing, I felt I was the happiest person on earth. These exercises have been transmitted to us by a community that has been practicing them for 2,600 years.
being happy
aware of your present feeling
allowing your present feeling
In us, there is a river of feelings in which every drop of water is a different feeling. To observe our feelings, we just sit on the riverbank and identify each feeling as it flows by and disappears. Feelings are either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Within a fraction of a second, many feelings can arise.
Our feelings are not separate from us or caused just by something outside of us. Our feeling is us, and, for that moment, we _are _that feeling. We needn’t be intoxicated by it or terrorized by it, nor do we need to reject it. All of our feelings, even difficult feelings like anger, can be embraces by us.
Anger is a fire burning inside us, filling our whole being with smoke. When our feelings are stronger than our mindfulness, we suffer. But if we practice conscious breathing day after day, mindfulness will become a habit.
make activity of the mind happy
right concentration to activity of the mind
liberate activity of the mind
“Formations” (samskara) is a technical term in Buddhism. Anything that is “formed”, anything that is made of something else, is a formation. A flower is a formation. Anger is also a formation, a mental formation.
Every time a mental formation arises, we can practice simple recognition. When we are agitated, we just say “I am agitated” and mindfulness is already there. To practice mindfulness of the mind does not mean not to be agitated. It means that when we are agitated, we know that we are agitated. Our agitation has a good friend in us, and that is mindfulness.
Even before agitation manifests in our mind consciousness, it is already in our store consciousness in the form of a seed. All mental formations lie in our store consciousness in the form of seeds. We may think that our agitation is ours alone, but if we look carefully we’ll see that it is our inheritance from our whole society and many generations of our ancestors. Individual consciousness is made of the collective consciousness, and the collective consciousness is made of individual consciousnesses. They cannot be separated.
We usually describe mind consciousness and store consciousness as two different things, but store consciousness is just mind consciousness at a deeper level. When mindfulness embraces or not, our sadness, and all our other mental formations, sooner or later we will see their deep roots. Mindfulness shines is light upon them and helps them to transform.
let go of impermanent nature all dharmas
observe no craving with respect to all dharmas
observe the nature of cessation of all dharmas
Each of our mental formations has to have an object. If you are angry, you have to be angry at someone or something, and that person or thing can be called the “object of your mind “. Investigation of the dharmas is one of the Seven Factors of Awakening. The Buddha described a number of meditation practices through which the objects of mind might be explored.
One can meditate on the Eighteen Realms or Elements (dhatus), on the first list of the Six Realms, a second list of Six Realms, and three additional realms of Desire, Forms and Formlessness. One can also meditate on the two realms of the Conditioned and the Unconditioned:
In the conditioned realm there is birth, death, before, after, inner, outer, small and large. In the world of the unconditioned, we are no longer subject to birth and death, coming and going, before or after. The conditioned realm belongs to the historical dimension. It is the wave. The unconditioned realm belongs to the ultimate dimension. It is the water. These two realms are not separate.
The heart of Buddhist meditation is the practice of mindfulness, and mindfulness is the practice of the precepts. You cannot meditate without practicing the precepts.
“Bhikshus, that is the practice of conscious breathing, whose function is to calm the body and mind, to bring about right mindfulness, looking deeply, and clear and single-minded perception so that the practitioner is in a position to realize all the Dharma doors that lead to the fruit of nirvāṇa. He or she practices like this.”
“If the Four Establishments of Mindfulness are developed and continuously practiced, they will lead to perfect abiding in the Seven Factors of Awakening.”
Samyukta Agama, Sutra No 803