This article describes breath meditation as taught in the first three days of the 10-day course by S N Goenka. Breath meditation helps us develop samādhi (one-pointedness). Let's see what this means.
Samādhi or one-pointedness simply means focused attention, without getting distracted. As a side effect of practicing one-pointedness, we also start feeling 'tranquil', so meditations which help us develop one-pointedness are also called 'Tranquility Meditations'.
For developing focused attention, what should we focus on? Buddhist tradition lists 40 different objects (40 Kasinas) that may be used, resulting in 40 different types of Tranquility Meditation. All of these are listed in a book called Visuddhimagga by Buddhaghosa, a 5th century Indian monk. This book is dense, with a lot of details. The Path to Purification website has a series of discourses by Sayadaw Silananda in English in mp3 format. These discourses go through the book page by page.
Picking up a meditation technique by reading a book like Visuddhimagga is likely to be challenging for most students. Instead, it would be wise to learn from a good teacher whose school has maintained the purity of technique over the years. Manuals like Visuddhimagga may then be used to assist our practice by clarifying some doubts or answering some questions that arise in our mind.
In Gautam Buddha's days, a student was assigned one of the forty techniques depending upon temperament, whether the dominating component of the student was greed, faith, intelligence, hatred, speculation or delusion, or some combination of these. Some of the forty techniques were deemed suitable for all students. Today, it appears that only a subset of these forty techniques are taught by teachers worldwide. Among these, breath meditation ('ānāpānasati') is the hardest but also the most popular.
Breath meditation is called ānāpānasati in Pali. It is one of the 40 techniques for "tranquility meditation" in Buddhism. The main instructions are deceptively simple:
When paying attention to breath in the nose region, we are asked to notice which nostril the breath is flowing in (left, right or both), and the direction (going in or out). Other aspects of breath may be ignored. For example, it may be ignored whether the breath was deep or shallow, whether the breath was long or short, or whether the breath was warm or cool.
The main instructions for breath meditation are succinct but incomplete. Several ancillary instructions are also given.
Hard Breathing: If natural breath becomes so deep that it's barely perceptible and paying attention is becoming difficult, or if the mind is so distracted that paying attention to natural breath is being difficult, then a temporary measure may be adopted: take several hard breaths (for up to a five minutes) before returning to natural breath.
Gentleness: When we catch ourselves lost in thought and wish to resume breath meditation, we must gently bring the mind back. The 'gently' part of the instruction is important. Bringing attention back to breath should be done with self-compassion, without belittling or admonishing ourselves for getting lost in thought.
Spectacles: Take off spectacles to avoid the tendency to open one's eyes.
Food: Avoid overeating during breakfast and lunch because it is difficult to meditate with a full stomach; one should keep the stomach one-fourth empty.
Sitting Posture: Sitting straight would be important in the long run; however it is not a major impediment to progress; chairs, cushions and back rests are provided in the meditation hall for anybody to use. And so on.
No counting, no chanting: As the breath goes in and out, is it okay to mentally repeat something like 'in, out, in, out, …', or some 2-syllable word like 'So-Ham'? No.
How exactly does chanting or counting or repetition of some syllable sequence deviate us from the purpose of Breath Meditation? I don't really know. A Vipassanā teacher may be able to explain. My broad understanding (which is derived from S N Goenka's explanation in one of his discourses): Chanting helps in quietening the mind (it helps us acquire tranquility) quickly. However, the goal of Breath Meditation is not to make the mind tranquil but to develop the ability to 'see' / 'witness' / 'develop awareness for' phenomena that naturally occur by themselves — yathā-bhūta in Pali (as S N Goenka sometimes says, 'to see things as they are, not as we would like them to be'). During the first few days at the 10-day course, we first pay attention to natural breath as it flows in and out. After a couple of days, we start paying attention to sensations which naturally occur on the surface of our body. These sensations are quite subtle and we need a very calm and concentrated mind to 'see' them. If we start chanting in addition to breath meditation, then we start creating something on top of natural phenomena (natural breath and naturally occurring body sensations), which deviates from the purpose of Breath Meditation.
Additional Guidelines: Many of the guidelines mentioned above have emerged in response to frequently asked questions by students. Still, each student has questions that are unique to his or her own situation, for example, due to health reasons and due to lack of clarity about what some word or some instruction really means. Assistant teachers are available to answer such questions. These answers constitute 'additional guidelines', tailored for that student.
We are asked to sit with our back straight. Getting one's back perfectly straight is a tall order. S N Goenka says that a straight back would 'help in the long run'. However, it is not an impediment to progress, at least for beginning students.
Acquiring a comfortable posture is important because one has to sit for long hours. However, discovery of a comfortable posture might require some experimentation and time. At the 10-day camp, no specific posture is recommended or encouraged; you may sit in any posture that is comfortable for you. Some people cannot sit on the floor and are comfortable in only a chair. Some sit on the floor in vajrasana, others sit in padmasana. Many who sit cross-legged on the floor find it helpful to place a cushion to raise their tailbones. Chairs, pillows, cushions and meditation stools are available to help you figure out the combination that works best for you.
You shall soon realize that you cannot sit for an hour with your back straight with tight muscles everywhere. And that is the beauty of meditation: the only sitting posture that allows you to sit motionless for extended periods of time is one where your muscles are relaxed and your spine is straight, both at the same time. Regular daily practice of exercises like Yoga/Pranayama from India or Qi Gong/Tai Chi from China helps improve posture.
On the first day, we are asked to observe natural breath in the nose region, as it flows in and out. We must take care not to modify our breath in any way (make it long or short or hard or hold it). As the meditation course proceeds, we are asked to narrow the area to the outer nostrils. As we make progress, we could shrink it to a small area (something as small as a fingertip) or a 'point'. Basically, the smaller the area in which we can observe breath, the better.
On the first day, our mind is typically not as calm / tranquil, so paying attention to a very small area is difficult. However, as the meditation course progresses, it becomes easier to pay attention to breath in smaller and smaller regions (the entire nose → the outer nostrils → an area the size of the fingertip → a "point").
Breath in the Abdomen? In Chinese practices like Qi Gong, they say that the entire body breathes. For example, the whole body of an infant gets inflated and deflated with every breath quite visibly. So breath can be observed at many parts of our body, especially in the abdomen which makes large movements. In fact, in the Mahasi Sayadaw tradition, one starts off by observing the movements of the abdomen (see instructions for meditation). However, at the 10-day camp, the instructions are to observe the breath in just the nose region. We pay no attention to other parts of the body.
Hour by hour, day by day, as we sit in meditation at the 10-day course, our breath starts becoming more and more relaxed, deep and long. It is harder to pay attention to such breath because it is barely perceptible. So we might get an urge to modify our breath (take 'hard breaths') so that there is slight 'friction' in the nose region to make the breath more easily observable. We musts avoid the tendency to take 'hard breaths' continuously. We resort to hard breaths only as a temporary measure, as explained below.
Natural breath: The instructions for Breath Meditation are to observe the breath as it naturally flows in and out. S N Goenka emphasizes repeatedly that the goal of meditation is to look at things as they really are (yathā-bhūta in Pali), and not as you would like them to be. So one should observe breath in its natural state. In contrast, breathing exercises like Pranayama modify breath. During breath meditation, we should not modify our breath. By forcing ourselves to pay attention to barely observable, deep and relaxed breaths, our mind becomes calmer and calmer; our focus and attention becomes stronger and stronger.
Hard breaths: In Breath Meditation, there is a provision for hard breathing as a temporary measure. If natural breath becomes so deep that it's barely perceptible and paying attention is becoming difficult, or if the mind is so distracted that paying attention to natural breath is being difficult, then take several hard breaths (for up to a five minutes) before returning to natural breath.
Concentration / One-pointedness: Paying attention to breath is the hardest part of Breath Meditation. Initially, you might discover that within two to three seconds of paying attention, your mind wanders away and you start thinking of something (some problem at work, some conversation with a colleague, some incident in your life, some person whom you like, and so on). After several seconds or minutes, you would realize that you actually sat down to observe your breath! And then, within two or three seconds of observing your breath, you start thinking again, forgetting that you have to pay continued attention to your breath. And the cycle continues. For this reason, it is important to have 1-hour sittings as a beginner because if you sit for only 10 minutes, you might have paid attention to your breath only two or three times for only two seconds each.
Nature of Thoughts? Discrete and Associative: When you were thinking, what were you thinking about? It turns out that thoughts occur in a discrete sequence. Successive thoughts are connected through some aspect. Using the lingo of computer scientists and mathematicians, there is a network (or graph) of thoughts, with two thoughts connected if they share something in common. And the mind hops from thought to thought along such a network. This is best explained using an example. You may remember your favorite movie, then you may remember that you had a conversation with a friend outside the theater, then you may remember that that friend has asthma, then you may remember that your grandma had asthma, then you may remember that your grandma gave you a sweater as present, then you may remember that you have a nice picture of yourself (a 'selfie') in that sweater, and so on :) Usually, the mind works quite fast, and hops from thought to thought quite rapidly. Phrases like "mind chatter" and "monkey mind" are used to describe this phenomenon.
Thought Retracing: During breath meditation, when you catch yourself lost in thought and gently bring attention back to breath, you might have memories of the most recent three or four thoughts — a quick analysis of these thoughts would help you verify that the 'network theory' of thoughts is actually accurate! Such analysis of the last few thoughts is called 'Retracing' in the article Experiments in Insight Meditation by Rod Bucknell, Australian Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 3 (1983), 96-117 (Note: most of this article is likely to make sense only to dedicated meditation practitioners). The author spent over four years practicing Vipassanā meditation in two different monasteries in Thailand, in the tradition of Mahasi Sayadaw. The 'Retracing' described in the article is not part of the instructions given at the 10-day course, and is not encouraged — it is a distraction.
Monkey Mind: The term Monkey Mind is used to describe thoughts: our mind jumps from one thought to another, restlessly, just like a monkey jumps from one branch of a tree to another, playfully. "Mind chatter" is another commonly used term to describe the same phenomenon.
One-pointedness, concentration, relaxation and sharpness: The goal of breath meditation is to maintain undivided attention to the touch of natural breath for extended periods of time in as small an area as possible. It is in this sense that the mind becomes one-pointed. As the mind gets more and more one-pointed, breath becomes longer and subtler. As a consequence, the touch of breath becomes progressively less perceptible. Being able to pay attention to subtler and subtler breath in the nose region requires a sharper and sharper mind -- it is in this sense that the mind is 'sharp'. Such sharpness shall be concomitant with more and more relaxation of the body. Soft tissues in various parts of the body shall loosen up as progress is made. Conversely, you will notice that when the mind is busy hopping from thought to thought, breath would be shorter and harder and the body shall not be as relaxed and the mind would not be as sharp. In a nutshell, deep breaths, one-pointedness, concentration, relaxation and sharpness are correlated.
How to measure progress? Progress in breath meditation is measured by two parameters: (a) the duration for which undivided attention can be paid to the touch of natural breath, and (b) the smallness of the region between the upper lip and the nostrils at which the touch of natural breath is felt. As progress is made, natural breath shall gradually become longer and lighter, its touch being barely perceptible. In one of the discourses on the fourth or fifth days, S N Goenka mentions that being able to pay attention for more than a minute denotes significant progress. With practice, this duration can increase to ten minutes, then thirty minutes, and so on.
Physical Changes: Attendees like me have busy lives in cities, some of us do not exercise. My personal experience at the 10-day camp: day by day, the muscles in the abdomen, lower back, upper back, shoulders and arms became more and more relaxed. For me, the litheness and relaxation was quite noticeable. My full-time job is sedentary; I sit in front of computers for long hours every day. The neck and shoulder muscles of professionals like me are usually tight, especially if we do not exercise. The flexibility I felt in my muscles reminded me of machines that operate smoothly after applying lubricating oil. Such flexibility improves posture and one can sit for longer hours in meditation.
A prerequisite for getting started with Tranquility Meditation of any kind is maintenance of sīla (moral conduct).
What is Sīla (moral conduct)? For householders (those who are not monks), sīla amounts to adherence to five precepts: no killing, no lying, no stealing, no sexual misconduct and no intoxication. For monks, the list of precepts is longer.
Sīla during the 10-day course: The 10-day course environment is carefully designed so that students maintain sīla for as long as they are attending the course. For example, an important reason for maintaining silence is to ensure that the precept of 'no lying' is adhered to. Segregation of men and women prevents sexual misconduct. In keeping with the 'no killing' precept, vegetarian food is served.
Why is sīla a prerequisite for breath meditation? I don't fully understand. My intuition is that if we have immoral conduct, then our mind wanders a lot, making it difficult to concentrate. For example, if we have done something egregiously harmful (killing, for example), we may not be able to even close our eyes out of fear.
Relationship between sīla (morality) and samādhi (one-pointedness): Sīla and samādhi are said to be synergistic — they help each other, like an 'upward spiral'. Once some progress in samādhi is made, it promotes 'sīla' and vice versa.
I once read this article: Five States of Mind, published by Swami Bhajananda of Vedanta Society of Southern California. The five states of mind are ksiptam (restless), mudham (dull), viksiptam (preoccupied), ekagram (concentrated) and niruddham(closed).
One-pointedness (ekaggatā in Pali), the state of mind achieved by tranquility meditation, is called 'ekagram' (a Sanskrit word) in the above article. Some who have never meditated like to believe that one gets 'ekagram' when one is absorbed in painting or when one is listening to music or focused on their work. In modern psychology, such activities are called Flow Activities, a term coined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. My personal belief is that flow experiences are not exactly the state of 'ekagram' that one acquires through tranquility meditation. For people who already engage in flow activities, the state of 'ekagram' (one-pointedness) would most probably be a new experience.
By the second day at the 10-day camp, a subtle but significant change in instructions for Breath Meditation takes place. Students are asked to limit the area for observing the flow of natural breath to the front portion of the nostrils (the 'outer nostrils'), with attention focused at the 'touch of breath' as it flows in and out. The emphasis on 'touch of breath' is subtly different from the original instructions for Breath Meditation. Earlier, our objective was to observe the flow of natural breath in the nose region, as it flows in and out. On Day 2, the emphasis is on the 'touch of breath' in the front portion of the nostrils. This subtle difference in instruction is actually significant because we are transitioning from observing breath to observing 'sensations' on the surface of our body. The 'touch of breath' is a particular kind of sensation.
Sensations: On the third day, the instructions are to observe sensations in the triangular region from the tip of the nose to the two endpoints of our lips. If we can't feel any sensation, then focus on the 'touch of breath' in the outer nostrils (or even better, at a small but fixed point in the outer nostrils). But keep making repeated attempts to observe sensations other than the touch of breath.
Sensations are of utmost importance in Vipassanā meditation. These bodily sensations are quite subtle and we need to have a calm and concentrated mind to be able to observe them (to 'see' them or to 'become aware' of them). Sensations are discussed further in the article Vipassanā Meditation.
Summary: In brief, Breath Meditation teaches us 'awareness' (of bodily sensations). The entire goal of breath meditation during the first three days is to make the mind so tranquil and so sharp that 'sensations' can be observed in small regions of the body, as small as possible. Only when the mind becomes aware of such subtle sensations can Vipassanā Meditation, the second technique taught at the 10-day course, be learnt.
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