Chapter 3—Training one’s breath to enhance mindfulness
In this chapter we will enhance our mindfulness to another level by observing the variation of our breath. You do not have to trouble yourself practicing Yoga. Simply know how to observe your breath is enough.
Let us do it right now. Ask yourself whether the very last breath was short or long. If you could not answer, that means your mindfulness was not embedding with the breath and your breath tended to be short. It is because your mindfulness was utilized in following your reading of this book.
But at this point, you will see that as soon as there is a prompting message for you to observe, your breath will immediately become longer even though you have not taken your eyes off the page. This is because when there is something that prompts you to be mindful of your breath, such mindfulness will condition your breath to be longer automatically. At this point let us observe that, on the contrary, we would only be aware of our breath whenever the breath is long, but seldom aware or even unaware of the breath whenever it is short.
While you are reading this line, are you breathing in long or short? Long is the feeling you tell yourself that you are drawing a long breath, which may be the same or longer than the previous breath. Short is the feeling that your breath is shrinking to the point of being difficult to observe. If you were asked and you drew your breath deeper than usual, it was alright. But just only once, do not try to breathe deeply consecutively many times, because forcing yourself to breathe deeply or frequently is not to enhance your mindfulness, but instead it will suppress the quality of your mindfulness.
You were aware of your breath whether it was long or short while reading the last paragraph. Now you may ask yourself once more whether your breath is still prolonged or not while reading this paragraph. Don’t be sad if your breath is shorter, nor be glad if it is longer, as there is no such thing as right or wrong with this method of practice. There is only seeing the ongoing phenomenon that one is experiencing truthfully.
You will see that you could take a little break from reading to be aware of your breath, almost without taking your eyes off the pages. That is when one is aware of one’s breath, mindfulness may temporary disappear from the letters and the meaning of those words for a very brief moment. But once one is aware of one’s breath, one’s eyesight would refocus on the content and one could understand the meaning of the book continuously like a flowing stream of water.
To be mindfully aware of your breath once in a while does not interfere with what you are doing. It is not doing two things at the very same time, which may disrupt your mindfulness. This is because even when working without being mindfully aware of one’s breath, mindfulness of general population is always disruptive. If you practice by asking yourself with ordinary mindfulness, e.g., by asking whether you are breathing long or short while reading each paragraph, you may set an example of being mindful while working. And with the very same method, it will even help you to improve the quality of your work by so many folds.
In this paragraph, you should begin to sense the calmness, and you should be more inspired in being aware of your breath. Especially, you should be exceptionally aware of the long breath. And as you are experiencing such exceptional awareness, it would result in your body drawing in longer breaths than usual. This is the nature of how the mind works. By simply having a target for your mind to fix on, that target will become more obvious accordingly. This is because when the mind is inspiring in a certain thing, with time it will be aware of such thing more profoundly and extensively. Once mindfulness is heightened, it will condition your body to a finer quality accordingly, as you have experienced with the longer breath than usual.
Coming to this paragraph, if your breath becomes shorter, yet you can still be clearly aware that your breath is in a shorter phase. It means that your mind has become a knower, and an observer of the whole breath body. It means that while breathing out, you are mindfully aware of breathing out. Breathing in, you are mindfully aware of breathing in. Taking a long breath, you are mindfully aware of taking a long breath. Taking a short breath, you are mindfully aware of taking a short breath. You will see that the nature of your mind has changed. That is while breathing, it would be like being inwardly aware of the scope of your body more clearly and extensively.
At this point, please observe that as you are breathing in, your abdominal wall would expand a little. Then a suitable mindfulness will spontaneously let you know how far you should expand your abdominal wall to make it comfortable while taking a long breath, and how to release the air out of your chest to maintain the same level of comfort. In this paragraph, please observe how short or long such comfortable feeling would last. Some may feel comfortable just only while inhaling. Some may feel comfortable just only while exhaling. Some may feel comfortable throughout the whole breath from beginning of inhaling until the end of exhaling. Do not pay attention to how long it would last. Just clearly be aware of it as it truly is.
Being aware of the comfort or discomfort as it truly is, you are considered having a clear awareness of something that is subtler than breath. This is another purpose of Vipassana. That is to be mindful starting from something tangible to something subtle in order to be able to gain more realization that both tangible and subtle states would not last forever and we should not cling to them. They are but something to be mindfully aware of.
Even after taking your eyes off this book, you can yet sense that mindfulness remains with you, as it is still anchoring with the awareness of the in-breath or the out-breath, as well as being aware of how long such comfortable feeling would last, which you may measure it by counting the numbers of your breath. This means that your mindfulness has advanced from seeing physical phenomena according to the true nature to seeing mental phenomena according to the true nature as well.
To practice Vipassana, it is very important that you have to be aware of both physical and mental phenomena. If you are only aware of physical phenomena, you just realize only a part of the truth, yet not realizing another part of the truth. On the contrary, if you are only aware of mental phenomena, it will not be enough either, as you have to be aware of physical phenomena as well, in order to thoroughly realize the whole truth.
Good quality Vipassana should happen regularly. This simply means that it should happen as often as you can, but do not try to force it to happen all the time, especially for a beginner. That is because it may be an act of suicide on the path of Vipassana from the initial step. To be aware is as if you were toying with it in your spare time, but doing it frequently as if it were the most favorite hobby of your life. This will be the underlying force to advance your practice continuously. You will find yourself beginning to be more inspired with your breath, and be more observant towards your own physical and mental comfort. It is because realizing with mindful awareness according to the true nature of things through an inward reflection within your body and mind would only result in benefit, and only lessen your habit of harming yourself and others. If you have not started practicing, you could never picture its outcomes. Just simply try it, and within a few days, you would realize by yourself how much Vipassana is valuable to your life.
The state of being clearly aware of breathing in or breathing out is neither bored nor uncomfortable. If practicing while reading this chapter causes you to be bored or uncomfortable, just use this paragraph as a new starting point. Begin by observing whether you are paying too much intention or having too much expectation to your breath more than just ‘gently be aware, like toying with it’ or not?
The mindfulness level that is right for the natural awareness of the present breath arises from reflection upon ‘being aware according to its capability.’ If you want to be aware more than you possibly could, the result is being uncomfortable, feeling stressful, and being discouraged from pursuing your practice beyond this point.
On the contrary, if you start by gradually developing awareness from the phase suitable to your mindfulness, you will feel comfortable, calm, or even luminous, and having fun, which in turn will encourage you to make more effort to progress further. Even when you stop reading this book, you still would not want to quit.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have applied the context in this book to prompt you to be mindfully aware of your breath directly. According to the principle of Vipassana, being aware of your breath is not just a simple recognition that you are breathing, but you should be aware whether you are breathing out or in, breathing a long or short breath, as well. Most people are aware of only the long breath, but not the short breath. This chapter has guided you to observe that if you could be aware of your breath even while you are taking a short breath, it will result into a new level of mindful awareness. Such heightened mindful awareness which is capable of extensive coverage in various phenomena continuously, either long or short, and gross or subtle, is what we really want for advancement to higher levels of Vipassana.
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