Mindfulness Of Body & Breath In Recovery

Welcome.

Like I said,

My name is Fordham and tonight we'll talk about this one aspect that is called mindfulness of body and in particular a mindfulness of breath.

It's a good place to start with the body,

Right?

Like I said,

If you're living,

You're breathing.

So maybe we back up just one step.

So talking about a definition of mindfulness,

Right?

We hear this term in our culture,

You know,

All the mindfulness of that or mindfulness of this,

Right?

And it's also relative in our or directly apropos to our program of recovery.

That,

You know,

It's suggested that we practice this 11th step,

Prayer and meditation.

What does that mean?

What does that mean to us?

And does it help us forge a conscious contact with our higher powers?

We understand the higher power.

This is almost saying like,

Well,

Your higher power could be one of these elements like mindfulness,

You know,

Or a way to calm and get in touch with the serenity.

So here's a,

This is a rather famous fellow in the mindfulness world now,

John Kabat-Zinn,

Who took a more scientific approach.

He was a student of Korean Zen.

I like to think he just ripped off Korean Zen.

Those are some of our old thoughts in here.

But he really presented mindfulness in a very science-based way and apparently he was at a medical facility and he worked with the chronic patients that the pain medication was not working for anymore.

Anybody get to that point,

Right?

I know I did.

It was just I couldn't smoke and drink enough to quell the pain.

But he worked with people that were in a medical situation,

Were being prescribed pain and they still,

You know,

Pain meds and still had pain.

And so he took them down to the basement here.

It was in Massachusetts,

I think someplace.

And he did this simple mindfulness stuff,

Just like the stuff we just practiced,

You know.

And,

And I'll talk about this a little bit tonight to just get that part of our brain working of like,

Oh,

Right.

When I sit,

What am I doing?

Like,

Am I doing this right?

I even have that,

You know.

Is this,

Is this the right way to be doing this?

Oh,

Right.

That's my thoughts.

Oh,

I come back to the breath.

I come back to the body.

And it's really kind of,

Well not kind of,

It's extremely subtle.

So here's a,

Here's a definition from John Kabat-Zinn.

He says,

Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention on purpose in the present moment,

Non-judgmentally.

And sometimes he says in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.

But let me read that just that,

That basic definition.

So this is a very secular definition,

Right?

Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention on purpose in the present moment and non-judgmentally.

I mean,

That's kind of what we just did.

That's why I wanted to start out with meditation,

Right?

Like you're listening to me,

You're just listening to your own breath.

And so the exercise here I want,

You know,

If you start to space out and zone out,

You know,

I've been to a thousand talks and sometimes it's like,

Oh,

This guy's crazy.

You know,

It's like,

Oh my God.

But that's that voice or like,

This is boring or this is like too much for me or whatever.

That is a trigger for me to be like,

Oh,

I can come back to my breath.

So maybe use that as I'm talking here is the meditation.

Like that's the exercise,

Right?

Like,

Oh,

My mind wanders.

What was he saying?

Oh,

Come back to my breath,

Come back to my body,

Come back into the room.

Oh,

Actually all is okay,

Right?

So the deeper side of this,

And what I read from before was the Satyapatthani Sutta,

Which is really about mindfulness of body,

Feelings,

Thoughts,

And insights.

And tonight,

Like I said,

We're gonna talk about the body in particular and the breath,

Using the breath to get in touch with this thing that we're driving around,

Amazing machine I'm driving around here,

You know,

I didn't build it,

But it's pretty amazing,

Right?

So I'll read you a couple of quotes here tonight and try to expound on the Dharma a little here,

As they say,

Or the Buddhist teachings or just,

You know,

Prayer meditation,

A conscious contact,

You know,

Kind of how do we do this?

So here's a definition I really like from the Buddhist Center website.

It says,

As its name implies,

Mindfulness of breathing uses the breath as an object of concentration,

Right?

That's what we did before.

Focusing on the breath,

You become aware of the mind's tendency to jump from one thing to another,

Right?

I don't know about you,

But even then I was like,

Dude,

Stay on focus,

You're leading the group.

Oh,

Wait.

Oh,

Yeah.

Okay,

We're gonna do the short little body scan,

Right?

Like,

It's just got to keep coming back to the breath.

I got that little monkey mind.

It's like,

Oh,

My God.

Hey,

Shanda.

Oh,

You're late.

Oh,

You got a red shirt.

Oh,

Yeah.

It's like,

Come back to the breath.

You know,

It says the simple discipline of concentration brings us back to the present moment,

And all the richness of experience that it contains,

Right?

You better been like someplace and you're up in your head and somebody says,

Oh,

Did you see that awesome,

Beautiful field that we drove through?

And you're like,

I didn't know I was thinking about something or you know,

Somebody or something,

Right?

It's like,

Oh,

My God,

You know,

So it's this just being like it says here,

Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention on purpose in the present moment,

Non judgmentally.

So,

As well as this mindfulness of breathing is a good antidote to restlessness,

Anxiety,

Right?

They tell you to take a few breaths if you're restless and anxious about something.

It's also a good way to relax.

Concentration on the breath has a positive effect on your entire physical and mental state,

Right?

So,

Yeah,

There's a couple quotes here that,

You know,

That are a little more popular.

Here's one from Oprah Winfrey,

Right?

She says,

Breathe,

Let go,

And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.

That's pretty powerful,

Actually,

You know,

For a non,

You know,

Yogi or she's pretty,

She's probably an advanced yogi,

You know,

She's amazing.

But I just thought that was great.

This is probably after she was studying with this woman who had children for a while.

But I just thought that was great.

Breathe,

Let go,

And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.

And then you don't have to get up in your head about that.

You can just come back to your body.

Because I'll be like,

Oh,

My God,

This is my only moment I got to go attach to it.

It's like,

No,

Then you're going too far,

Right?

It's not too tight,

Not too loose.

They're like,

All right,

I have this moment,

And this is cool.

This is an amazing joy of my life to be with all you all,

You know,

In recovery and practicing the 11th step here and exploring it,

You know.

So like I said before,

You know,

We'll explore this a little bit more of how we get in touch with this body.

And so this is a pretty heavy text.

It's the Middle Length Discourses.

These are from foundational Buddhism.

They're called Nikayas,

And this is the Mejumaniya Nikaya,

Which means the Middle Length Discourses.

So these are sort of like short stories,

You know,

That the Buddha told.

And I'm looking through this,

And really this is like,

Sometimes like reading stereo instructions.

You're like,

What?

Like the thing I read you at the beginning,

We read one of these things.

And I read you that one because that's actually twice.

It's listed twice in the Satipatthana Sutta.

So I was like,

Man,

This one's pretty good if they listed it twice.

But for a while I was really perplexed.

Like,

Why are these other things in here?

Okay,

Body.

Oh,

I understand.

They have the four postures.

So we could be sitting,

We could be standing,

We can be walking,

Or it can be laying down,

Right?

A lot of times you go on a retreat and you're sitting and walking,

Right?

And standing.

And laying down meditation is very difficult because,

Why?

That's my favorite.

Luminosity of sleep.

That's my favorite meditation.

But anyway,

There are these other sections here.

You know,

This full awareness,

And then they have this foulness of the body.

I mean,

They're really getting into it.

Then they have this thing about these charnel ground contemplations.

I'm like,

Why the hell is this?

This is heavy-duty stuff in here.

And I was like,

Oh,

It's all about the body.

Like,

This body's impermanent,

Right?

Like,

Geez,

I'm born.

You know,

Old age,

Sickness,

Death.

It just happens.

It's sort of the deal.

If we're born,

Then we go through this stuff.

But that's not the end-all be-all.

And it's pretty heavy.

And apparently the story is that the Buddha first taught his first disciples,

And these bhikkhus,

They call them monks,

Of mindfulness of the body in this heavy way.

Like,

Go to the graveyard.

And this was the graveyard back when they just dumped the bodies off.

So there's wild animals that were coming there,

And you're sitting there meditating.

Like,

These wild animals might eat me,

As well as these remains.

And contemplating these decaying bodies.

I mean,

This is heavy-duty stuff,

Right?

So apparently some of these bhikkhus committed suicide.

They thought,

What's the point?

You know,

It's like,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa.

You know,

Buddha was like,

Oh,

That's a little too heavy.

Why don't we just start with our breath,

Right?

Like,

Oh yeah,

That's much easier,

You know?

Like,

We don't have to jump to the end.

And as addicts,

I mean,

I know,

I do.

I'm like,

Yeah,

What's the point?

You know,

We're all gonna die anyway.

And I remember my mama was saying to me,

She was like,

Well,

The point of life,

You know,

It's not death.

The point of life is to have a good life,

You know?

We were driving through a cemetery at the time.

I was like,

Oh,

That was really weird.

Anyway,

Let me put that away for later.

So,

Anyway,

Here's another quote.

One of my favorites.

I took refuge in mindfulness trainings.

I actually just read those this morning.

Again,

You know,

This is sort of observing things like we do already in the program,

Right?

We sort of have to live this ethical,

Disciplined lifestyle a little bit so that we don't,

You know,

Use and do things we don't want to do.

So,

Refraining from stealing and lying,

Cheating,

Killing people,

Sexual misconduct.

And the fifth one is refraining from intoxicants.

Oh,

I already got that one down.

Anyway,

This fellow,

Thich Nhat Hanh,

He's a Vietnamese monk.

He just passed away,

But he had done a tremendous amount of writing,

And it was a very popular figure.

But this is a great quote about this mindfulness of body and breathing.

He says,

To meditate with mindful breathing is to bring body and mind back to the present moment so that you do not miss your appointment with life.

So,

Here,

You know,

We pay attention to the sensations of breath,

And when our mind wanders,

As it invariably does,

We can return the attention of the breath with kindness and non-judgment.

And through this process,

We cultivate getting in touch with our awareness by simply focusing on the breath,

Not following the past or anticipating the future,

Or even analyzing the present.

We're just breathing,

Right?

So,

This is a lot of words about this.

A lama I talk with,

He's like,

Oh,

This is the blah blah blah.

You know,

It's like I said before,

Like,

This is the menu,

Right?

What we did before was like,

Those are hors d'oeuvres.

And we'll get to the main course here in a minute,

But I just want to tell you about the next course,

You know,

Or whatever.

So,

Looking,

Resting in the breath,

And relaxing,

Right?

That's the real key here,

You know?

Why beat ourselves up,

You know,

Like in the program,

Right?

Like,

I didn't get sober to be stressed out.

There's another way of being,

Right?

Settling and noticing what you notice about the breath can be a powerful tool to self-soothe and to also see things clearly.

You know,

A lot of times,

I'd be working at the rehab,

You know,

At the Harmony,

And people were like,

This meditation's not,

You know,

Making things better.

I was like,

I never said it was gonna make it better,

Man.

I just said it's gonna calm you down and let you be able to see a little more clearly.

And sometimes,

That's not fun.

So,

A lot of people say,

Well,

I meditate,

It gets worse.

It's like,

Yeah,

That's what they say in the program,

Right?

It gets better,

It gets worse,

It's different,

Then it gets real,

Right?

And then you start studying this meditation stuff,

And it gets surreal.

Anyway,

That's all.

Hey,

Use this one,

This is my joke.

All right,

So here's another quote from Jack Hornfield that I really like.

He says,

Our breath is a mirror for us,

Right?

I think that's important.

A lot of times,

I'll be like,

Wow,

I am breathing.

I'm like,

Not even like running up the hill.

I'm just like freaking out about something in my head.

I'm like,

Oh,

Whoa.

You know,

So our breath is a mirror for us,

And sometimes we can be very calm,

You know,

And they say that the mind rides the breath,

Right?

That's one of those.

So,

Most of the time,

We don't look in that mirror.

It's the mirror of our energy.

It's the mirror of our openness,

Feeling how full your breath is at different times.

If you want to see what is happening in you,

Pay attention to your breath.

So,

There's many techniques,

You know,

That we can use.

We count the breaths,

We can notice the breath,

You know,

In the nose or in the mouth,

You know,

Back of the throat,

Deep in the lungs.

We can focus a lot lately.

I've been doing this.

We did the seven postures of Virochana,

Where I was taught to focus on the,

You know,

The space between the nose and the upper lip,

And that's been helping a lot,

You know,

Because I can get lost in the breath,

You know.

So,

There's all these different ways,

And if you've done,

Anybody here,

Yogi,

You know,

Done some yoga,

They call this pranayama,

Which is really working with your breath.

In the Jewish faith,

They call it nefesh,

Which is actually the life force,

Right,

You know,

Breath of life.

And technically,

Really,

All we really,

If you really get subtle,

You really have control over the out-breath,

Because the atmospheric pressure is actually what's to fill it back up and even out.

So,

These are some things I'm starting to tell you about.

We'll sit here again in a moment,

And you'll start to notice these little things.

Now that we've sort of tested some stuff,

We can start to notice the hints of all the different flavors of your breath.

So,

You know,

The breath,

Like I said,

The breath is always with us,

So it's a good anchor to use,

Right,

You know,

We can move to different things,

We can keep our eyes open if we want,

Or keep them closed,

We can focus on different things,

Breath,

Body,

Any object of concentration will do,

You know.

But,

You know,

Just remember,

Maybe this gets a little trippy,

But the universe is breathing you,

Right,

We naturally breathe,

Like when we sleep,

Right,

We're breathing.

So,

That's pretty much all the blah,

Blah,

Blah.