Bhante Buddharakkhita: Instruction on Mindfulness of the Body/Breathing

This morning we'll continue with the mindfulness of the body, breathing and getting grounded. Some of it will be more refining the instructions and repeating the same thing. The Buddha taught for 45 years and teaching only four things. Suffering, it's cause, awakening of happiness and how to awaken. He spent 45 years repeating things in different ways. So if you hear some repetition, be calm and be peaceful. Don't say, I've heard that before. Here we go. Just relax. Okay? The Buddha gave us the guidelines. The more the merrier. Okay. Sit comfortably. Feel at ease. You've heard that before. Settling back in the present moment, bringing awareness to the body sitting here, the body sitting, and the mind knows that the body is sitting. These are the best instructions the Buddha gave. And I can relate to that. Buddha was teaching farmers, non-people from Harvard, the university, and he did complicated instructions. So sit and know that you're sitting. The body is sitting and the mind knows that the body is sitting. How can you complicate that? As you become aware of the body sitting, yesterday, remember, when we were talking about the four elements, what element is it prominent as you are sitting here? Hardness. Maybe it begins with softness. And that's the proper of earth element. You just need to be aware of what's more prominent than others. You don't have to look for everything. Once you know one, the rest is implied. It's just like when you got on a diving board and plunged into the swimming pool. You may be aware of hardness, but it doesn't mean there's no warmness or coolness or softness. But what's more prominent at that time is hardness. So even in meditation, when we practice, awareness of the body, the elements, just be aware of what's more prominent, hardness. And what's happening to hardness? Is it changing, staying the same, or disappearing? Maybe it's softness. The way the body is touching the cushion, can you be aware of that softness? There are sensations around it. Then we make small transition from the body sitting here to what's the body's doing. Chances are that the body's breathing. Maybe you're not aware of that. So be aware of the body's breathing. Again, it's simple. The body's breathing and the mind knows that the body's breathing. How can you ever complicate that? We are paying attention to what's already happening naturally. We're not asking you to do something out of the ordinary. You're already breathing. And you have been observing this breath since the time you were born. But here the invitation is to observe in a very special way. And the Buddha gave instructions, breathing in, know that you are breathing in. Breathing out, be mindful that you are breathing out. Ever mindfulness, you know that you are breathing in. Ever mindful, you know that you are breathing out. He starts with the best instruction like that. And then you continue on to sharpen your awareness, your perception of the breath. The invitation is here to know whether you are breathing in a longer breath or short breath. Again, you're not making it deliberately longer or shorter. But just pay attention to what's already happening. Sometimes the breath is longer, sometimes it's short. Up to now the invitation is that you know that you are breathing in a long breath. You are breathing out a longer breath. As the mind settles with continual mindfulness, there comes calmness, concentration, and then wisdom to see things in more details. That's when the Buddha is telling us to really experience the whole body from beginning of in-breath to the end of it, beginning of breath to the end of it. That's the whole body. You train. Now the instruction is shifting from knowing to training, experiencing the whole body. That's where in my practice I bring in the four elements. The four elements, I apply them to the breath. So I decide to discern as the breath is coming in and out, what element, what property of the element I'm experiencing now? Maybe it's movement. Can you be aware of the movement? Again, you don't have to just say air element, earth element, water element, fire element. It's not necessary. It's a direct observation of what's going on with the breath. As it goes in, sometimes the breath is, you can feel it as coolness and coming out, warmness. It's a direct experience, sometimes moisture. Again, you don't have to fabricate anything. You just be aware of whatever is prominent at a time and the rest is implied. Sometimes you can be aware of the touch sensation of the breath. So you have two chances here to observe the breath at the primary stage, which is the nostrils, and the secondary stage. Some people, it's not easy to observe the breath at the nostrils. Then the second recommendation is to be aware of the breath at the secondary stage, which is rising in the fourth abdomen. Again, as you breathe in, the abdomen rises. Breathe out. The abdomen falls. Again, we can apply four elements, expansion of the abdomen and contraction of the abdomen. That's air element. As you become aware of the expansion, can you be aware from the beginning of the expansion to the end? From the beginning of contraction to the end? Contraction. It's mostly recommended for beginners to be aware of the breath at the secondary stage, rising in the fourth abdomen, because it is easy to observe. The sensation will arise as the abdomen is expanding. A tightness. A tension. Sometimes we may not have enough mindfulness to learn on the direct experience. We might use a mental note to support awareness. We use a mental note as like a flutter. We can use a flutter when we are learning how to float on a swimming pool to support us. You can use it when it's necessary and when it's not necessary, you can remove it. So with a mental note also, sometimes it might be necessary, sometimes it's not. So we allow our direct experience less than 99%, just a rough figure, to be our direct experience and 1% to support our mindfulness, to learn at the direct experience. So with rising in the fourth abdomen, we can just be aware of rising, falling. If you are observing the breath at the nostrils, as you breathe in, just be aware of not in, just a mental note in, breathing out, a mental note out. You can use them if they support you, especially when there are so many things coming and going, you're getting lost. Sometimes just using a mental note can help us to direct our experience to what's going on in the present moment. Sometimes there might be so many things going on and using a mental note, it's not helpful. So use them sparingly, but I invite you to try. Of course, as we settle back in the present moment and bring awareness to the breath and the body, mind wanders into the past and future and can make a mental note of wondering, wondering or thinking. If it's the past, maybe remembering, if it's the future, planning or simply thinking, can make a mental note and come back to your anchor with kindness and compassion. You can come back gently to your primary object, your anchor. As you continue your meditation, sometimes there's a gap between in-breath and out-breath. Simply bear your knowing. You don't have to figure out how to close that gap. You're simply knowing that in this breathing process, it's happening by itself. Sometimes as the gap continues to widen, you can feel it with sitting, just sitting, touching the body. Simply knowing the gap is not a problem. It's just important to continue with your mindfulness, continue to your mindfulness. And that knowing, activating your knowing what's happening is the way to continue your mindfulness. In all these mind-body processes, it's very, very important to remember that we want to observe the changes that's happening. In the permanence nature of our experience, can we see things changing, rising, passing away? Not forcing them, but bearing witness, be mindful of the process, the changing nature of our experience, rising of the abdomen and falling of the abdomen. A lot is revealed in this process. It's a fair practice. I'd like to emphasize on a few things I mentioned in our Garden Meditation today. The four elements, it's part of mindfulness of the body, four foundational mindfulness. It's a very, very powerful practice. You need to know the properties. I think yesterday you learned about them. You can acquire elements, the properties of coolness and hotness, earth elements, heaviness, hardness and softness, water elements, the properties, cohesiveness and fluidity. And you can experience that when you are swallowing, if you are full, swallowing. Air element expansion and contraction movement. You may learn it and write it down, but they are direct experience that you can't see for yourself. I use it in my breath as in my talk I talked about. We are not balloons. I don't know if you remember that. So to avoid balloonness, putting in air, going out. So what I do is to track down each breath. I tell them what's happening to this breath, if they are warmness, coolness, movement, something must happen. I don't force it to happen, but I try to look out for something. So I use them even for rising and for abdomen. When I instruct beginners, I tell them, please put your hand here, rising, expansion and contraction of the air. And even for the breath I tell them, put your finger here. So then they can feel the breath coming out. You try it, put it here. Breathe in, breathe out, warmness, and remove the finger. So now put your mind there. Not the finger, no. Now the mind. People come to report, they have nothing to report. There's a lot you can report that when I was breathing, I felt warmness, I was really, I mean there's a lot going on. I thank the Buddha actually. That's why I do in Buddha Nusrati, whenever I just think about the Buddha, ah wow, he saved me a lot. Because before I was breathing, since I was born, I was breathing and I was not paying attention to my breath. Can you imagine? You spend almost 20 years not paying attention to your breath. And here some of the thing is, pay attention to your breath. That's what keeps you alive. Isn't it amazing? So what I do also is smuggle four elements into the food. So when I'm eating food, I'm not just eating pizza, lasagna and all that. No. I just feel the hardness, the softness of the food. As I was, I'm so looking, I just feel the element. Water element. It's just amazing. When I do walking meditation, same thing. Lifting, I mean everybody walks, you know. What's the difference between a meditator who's walking and somebody who's walking the dog? Actually the dog walking, actually. What's the difference between a dog walking and you walking? There should be a difference. So for me as I'm walking, lifting, I become aware of the heaviness. I put down the food, the lightness of the food. That's the earth element. As I'm moving the leg, there's a movement. Sometimes the pressure, it's a lot of insight to get. Though I had a problem when I was in Uganda, when I was walking like this, enjoying all my insight, people say, have you lost anything? Everywhere I was walking, can we help you? Are you looking for something? I start hiding, walking this way. It was very difficult for me to find a place for me to meditate, walking meditation. As soon as I started walking, looking down, and I just feel the insight of heaviness and lightness and movement. It's just like a lot of fun, you know. Enjoy arising from walking and insights and somebody come and interrupts me. Can I help you? Anyway, it gets a lot of insight into the four elements. Thank you very much. May you be well, Patrice. I'm going to do the announcements this morning. So on long retreats, on the weekends and on Wednesdays, teachers take day-offs. And so on the weekends, some teachers take a day-off on Saturday and some teachers take a day-off on Sunday. And then on Wednesdays, all the teachers take a day-off. So what really a day-off means for us is there's no practice meetings. We're still pretty much around and we're still here. Probably come to the Dhamma talk or something like that, but we just don't have practice meetings. So check the board. Everyone here should have been seen at least by one teacher. And we're starting this weekend with the second teacher. So check the board and see if your name is on the... on Saturday or Sunday. I'm actually the only one that's having practice meetings and some of my times had to get switched around. And so if you were expecting to see me, please check the board and make sure you have the right time. Tonight and every Saturday, we are going to have a late night sit. So along with treats, sometimes it is really good to take an evening and sit into the night. So we're not sitting the whole night. We sit really till about maybe not quite 12 o'clock midnight. We just... we come back at... we had the chanting as normal and then you can go and get ready for bed and then you can come back at around 10 o'clock, not around 10 o'clock, at 10 o'clock. And we start this sit, walk, sit. That's what we do together. We sit for 40 minutes, walk for 40 minutes, sit for 40 minutes. You can stay as long as you want. You can give it a try and say, no, not for me. And you can leave or not even come. It really isn't... it's for what's called determination. It's done in monasteries all over. It's sort of a together we sit and extend our practice into the evening. The worst I've ever heard about doing a late night is you're sleepy tomorrow. But thankfully you're on retreat. So if you're sleepy tomorrow, you go to sleep. Don't worry about it. So if you want to give it a try, we'll be here. And then at the end of the sit and the walk in the sit, we have snacks. So that's the little brythe part. But let's see. Since today... Wait, is it today? No, it's tomorrow. Isn't daylight savings time tomorrow? But I think we set our clocks back to night. So when you go to bed, the facilities will set the clocks in the hall and everywhere. But you will need to set your clock back for the little alarm clock in your room so that it'll go off on time. So just set it back one hour when you go to bed. Is that... I think that's all of them. Oh, and the hall will be closed from 4 to 6.30. I think it's 6.30. Okay, go ahead. We also just wanted to let you know with Bante's interview room being in M200, it's in there because of the veneer, the monastic coat. Bante can't be in private with someone. That's why we leave the door open. And so just to give privacy, not to stand too close to there so you're not hearing people's practice, made things. Come closer to this day if you had a question. P.N.