The Ancient Practice Of Awareness Of Breathing

Welcome to this meditation practice.

Now this practice is very,

Very ancient.

And it's also very modern,

Because it's been validated by modern neuroscience in a profound way.

It is used in all of the meditative traditions from Asia,

Without exception.

And it has many different names.

So the name we're going to use today is Awareness of Breathing.

It's very simple.

It's about bringing your attention to one of the most necessary functions of life,

Which is breathing.

Another being heartbeat,

Of course.

And what you're doing is you're sustaining your attention onto the breath,

Without changing it,

Without altering it,

Without modifying it,

For a short period of time to begin with,

But over time,

For a more and more extended period of time.

One of the things that this does is it brings to transparency all of the other unconscious processes of the body.

It also brings to transparency more of the energetic continuum of the body.

And according to modern neuroscience,

The work of Richie Davidson,

One of the things it does is build stronger neural bridges,

That's between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

And what that does is give you the capacity to say no.

It gives you what we call free won't.

No,

I'm not doing that.

I'm going to choose something else.

And then it gives you the capacity to choose something else.

So quite a stunningly rich practice,

Really.

So,

To enter into this practice in a really good way,

We're going to go through a couple of protocols,

Which will enable you to more fully optimize the depth of the practice.

Now,

I say this because in the Zen tradition,

It is said that people can rarely attend to the breath more than about four breaths before their mind is wandering off,

Distracted onto something else.

So these entry protocols give you a better chance,

If you like,

Of landing in the practice in a deeper,

More meaningful way.

Now,

When we get in the practice,

The intention is to stay present and aware,

Fully present,

Fully here,

Fully now,

Fully aware.

So there's no trancing out,

No dissociation,

No drifting away,

No sleeping,

Nothing of that kind.

You're being fully present to the breath,

To each and every breath.

So that's the intention,

And we go in with that intention.

So from there,

What I want you to do,

What I invite you to do,

Is to get yourself in a really comfortable sitting position.

You can sit on a chair if you want to,

You can sit cross-legged,

You could kneel,

Any of those kind of positions.

But the key thing is to have your body stacked well,

Which simply means that your head is above your chest,

Your chest is above your belly,

And your belly is above your pelvis.

Then the legs,

Of course,

Are going to be either in a chair sitting,

Cross-legged,

Or kneeling.

It's important that when you're doing this stacking,

That you remain in this kind of elevated position,

Comfortably and clearly,

For the duration of the practice.

And minimize movement as much as possible.

If you really need to move,

Then move mindfully.

Move mindfully,

Move gently,

And just move your body as you need to.

But as best as possible,

Try and sit still.

And what you can do if there's some sensation that is demanding movement,

Is just feel into the sensation first.

Give it a few moments before you move it,

And then move it mindfully.

So the first thing is posture,

How you're sitting.

The second thing to do,

The second to these protocols,

Is that you're going to check the environment.

And this is a feeling-based check.

So as you're sitting now,

Comfortably,

Feel behind you,

Into the space behind you.

And just notice how it feels behind you.

It takes some time just to do this,

Just a few seconds is more than enough.

You can take longer if you want to.

And then what you're going to do is bring your attention to the front of the body.

And feel into the space in front of the body.

Just notice how that is.

And again,

Just a few seconds here is probably enough.

And then to the left of you.

And then to the right of you.

So you've got those four directions that you're feeling into.

Behind you,

In front of you,

To the left of you,

And to the right of you.

And then you're going to feel underneath,

Into the space beneath you,

Down into the earth.

And then into the space above you,

Up,

Up into the sky,

Up into the 60 miles or so of atmosphere.

And before you get into space,

You're just feeling upwards into that space above you.

So you've got those six directions that you feel into.

Behind you,

In front of you,

To the left,

To the right,

Below and above.

And then from there,

Bring your attention into the seventh direction,

Just into the center of your chest.

And if you want to,

You can put your hand on your chest.

Just to acknowledge this sense of being alive as this individual,

This person,

This me.

And just feel that,

And feel the center of your chest.

Because in yogic,

Dharmic thinking from Asia,

From India,

Tibet,

China,

Japan,

The center of the mind is in the center of the chest.

It's in the heart,

In fact,

Not in the head.

So the head is the center of thinking and sense-making,

But not the center of the mind,

The sentience of the whole living body.

So you're feeling the sentience of the whole living body.

All the informational web of the body here in the center of the chest.

The seventh direction.

So you've got stacking and posture,

And you've got this environmental check in the seven directions.

And these are the first two parts of the protocol.

The next part is to choose your eye position.

And you can have your eyes fully closed,

Or you can have them half closed.

Just drop the eyelids slightly.

It depends what feels comfortable.

There are different benefits to doing it in different ways,

But just choose one of them for now,

And just close those eyes a little.

Or keep them fully closed,

Either way.

If it's really difficult,

You can do it with the eyes open,

But it's a little bit harder because we want to reduce the visual information into the brain,

Because we're such visual creatures,

That it's quite good to reduce some of that visual information to enable us to process information a little bit differently,

Which is what we're doing.

So the eyes is the third part of the protocol.

The next thing you can do with those eyes in position is slowly scan your body from the top of your head all the way down to your feet.

And then from the feet up to the top of the head.

And you can do this as slowly or as quickly as you want.

It's probably good to do it a little bit slowly to begin with,

To get into a real sense of embodiment,

Feeling the body,

Saying hello to all the different parts of the body,

So the body's involved in this meditation.

It is an embodied meditation.

So we've got all these different pieces.

Stacking,

Posture,

Environmental check.

The eyes,

And now scanning the body.

The next thing you're going to very simply do,

And the last part of these protocols,

Is simply to listen to everything you can hear.

Take your attention out into the web of sound,

The mandala of sound,

In every direction you can hear.

Sounds far away,

Sounds close to hand,

Big sounds,

Small sounds.

Doesn't matter what they are,

You don't have to name them or judge them.

Just paying attention to anything,

Any nuance or flavor or quality of sound.

And it's from these protocols now,

That you bring your attention to the breath.

And what you're simply doing,

Is sustaining your attention on the breath,

As it comes in and as it goes out.

As it enters and as it leaves the body through the nostrils.

You might also notice in your field of awareness,

The movements of the body.

Some part of the body will be moving to enable breathing to happen.

So you might also feel that movement,

The belly maybe,

And the air entering and leaving through the nostrils.

And the principle of the practice now,

Is to sustain this attentional flow,

On the air moving in and out of the nostrils,

Noticing changes in temperature,

Velocity,

Whether the breath stops or slows down or speeds up,

Without judging it,

Without changing it,

And just continuing this.

Continuing this attentional capacity,

To stay present to the breath,

To stay fully alive to the breath.

And remember that without breath,

There's no life.

So breathing is so,

So critical.

Right now,

We're prioritizing,

The top of the to-do list,

Is prioritizing this attentional capacity,

On the life breath.

Sustaining this quality of attention,

On the life breath.

It's fresh.

It's bright.

It's present.

It's clear.

It's here.

And you're fully here,

Fully alive,

Fully clear,

Fully now,

With the breath.

Breath breathing you,

You,

The breath,

One flow.

Fully here.

And sustaining this attention.

Sustaining this capacity,

To remain in awareness of breath.

This practice is sometimes called,

Noticing and returning.

Noticing and returning.

Because you notice,

If your attention has wandered,

Maybe onto a story,

Some event in the mind,

Or to an external phenomena,

Maybe you were distracted by a sound,

Maybe you were distracted by a sensation in the body,

Or by an emotion.

So you notice the distraction,

And you just check,

And you say,

Yeah,

I've been distracted.

And you return your attention,

Back to the breath.

So sometimes this practice is called,

Noticing and returning.

And the art of the practice,

Is to develop,

Noticing and returning,

Without judgment,

Of yourself,

Or your capacity,

Or your skills as a meditator.

Simply to do it,

And to keep doing it.

To keep noticing and returning.

And sustaining that attention on the breath.

Staying fresh to the breath.

Staying present with the breath.

Staying fully clear,

Fully clear in clarity.

Being fully here,

Fully now,

Fully now,

With the breath.

Simply being,

Being,

Simply being,

Like breathing.

Fully here,

Fully now,

Fully present,

Fully clear.

Take a nice,

Long,

Slow inhale.

Manipulate the breath,

And take a full,

Long,

Slow inhalation.

And as you exhale,

Hum gently,

And feel the vibration behind your lips,

Behind your eyes,

In your head,

And maybe even in your chest.

Let's do it together.

Breathing in.

You could bring the hand back onto your chest,

When you do this,

If you wanted to.

And try again.

Let's do another breath like this.

Breathing in.

And one more.

Breathing in.

Now you can gently open your eyes.

Rub your hands together,

If you want to.

Move your body a little bit.

You're welcome.

That was a short practice,

Of about six minutes or so,

Of sitting.

And that gives you an introduction to awareness of breathing.

And it's really worth doing this practice,

Because in the modern day,

One of the many things it does is help you balance your dopaminergic systems to enable you to make positive choices with regard to social media and the use of a smartphone,

And any digital facility.

It gives you the capacity to train your mind,

To train your brain,

To say no to what you want to say no to,

And yes to what you want to say yes to,

Whilst at the same time tuning you in to the depths of what life is really about.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for joining me on this practice.

Have a blessed day.