Chapter 4—Energy-saving tool for gaining continuity
In order to practice Vipassana continuously, the Buddha advised one to be aware of one’s breath frequently, as breathing is something that must be ongoing 24 hours a day, and it is pure. The more one is aware of one’s breath, the more mindfulness one would gain.
In the last chapter, you have practiced to be mindful with breathing in real time. You were reading and aware of your breath at the same time. You have already found out that it was simple because there were messages prompting you inwardly to be aware of what was going on within yourself.
The problem is that after taking your eyes off this book, there will be no messages to prompt you anymore. You must have enough determination to remind yourself in order to survive safely on the Vipassana path.
Another problem for a beginner is that if one puts too much effort to be aware of one’s breath, one will be stressful, uncomfortable, or even having headache. Therefore, this chapter will give some strategies to assure that you will start practicing awareness of your breath easily and naturally, including preventing you from being stressful, confused, and discouraged. That is we will practice being aware of our breath disconnectedly, or being aware of it once in a while.
By using an alarm clock
Our present days’ technology, if used wisely, will benefit you in every aspect, practicing Vipassana included. You may acquire a watch or a small digital clock that you can take with you. It can also be a clock program on your computer which you can use while you are working. Set the alarm for every 2 minutes. Each time the alarm goes off, ask yourself whether you are breathing in, breathing out or stop breathing at the moment. Be aware of it as it truly is. Each time the alarm goes off, just be aware of your breath only once. Do not try to be aware of it more than that.
It is normal for the beginner’s mindfulness to be irregular, but the alarm clock maintains its regularity. Two minutes intervals are frequent enough to generate mindfulness automatically, yet long enough for not creating stress. Not very long after you have tried it, you will observe that you can be aware of your breath naturally without focusing, or particularly extracting calmness out of your breath. The result is that you will realize the true nature of your breath at that moment as it is.
Apart from being aware of breathing in, breathing out, or stop breathing, you should also observe yourself whether you are happy, or unhappy, including the various degrees of happiness or unhappiness, whether it is more or less than those of the previous breathing during the two minutes earlier. To be able to differentiate happiness and unhappiness between the two intervals will gradually work your mindfulness into the way of Vipassana.
Promise yourself that you will not modify, adjust, or paint the picture of what is happening better than what it truly is, not only the breath but also the degrees of happiness or unhappiness. If you are stressful, just accept that you are stressful. If you are comfortable, just perceive it truthfully that you are comfortable. Emphasize to yourself that Vipassana is seeing things as they truly are in order to realize their impermanence. It is not seeing only what you love to keep for yourself, and discarding what you hate.
The alarm clock will help to enhance your mindfulness to occur regularly, and help you sprint off the starting point quite swiftly, beyond imagination. That is, within a day, you will become a new person, stop being obsessed or pondering on insubstantial matters, and begin to pay attention to things that are pure in their nature. Beginning with being aware once every two minutes will not create any stress, instead it will lead you to a stronger mindfulness.
Please observe that the more regularity you are mindfully aware of your breath, your breath will be longer and more refined, and it will make you become more peaceful. If you feel that you begin to get used to it, try to adjust the timing from every two minutes to every one minute. When you can be aware once every minute consecutively for half an hour, you may feel that the world is dramatically different and the clock becomes something in excess and no longer necessary. That is because your mindfulness begins to occur automatically.
By using sticky notes
Write down the phrase ‘be aware of your breath’ on sticky notes and post them on many spots in your bedroom, at least two places or more. It will be best if you post them on the spots where you frequently, yet unintentionally, look at.
You will find that the note ‘be aware of your breath’ has a great influence upon your mind. The note not only makes you understand in what you are reading, but also acts as an important order, prompting you to be mindfully aware of your breath.
Don’t forget to ask yourself while you are aware of your breath whether you are comfortable or uncomfortable. If you are comfortable, acknowledge it as being happy. If you are uncomfortable, acknowledge it as being unhappy. Try to compare the difference between seeing each note. You will find out that your bedroom has been transformed into a massive production line, generating mindfulness so easily in just a few days.
By using posture
This topic may be slightly tougher than the previous ones, because there is no external tool beyond your body to help you. But the good thing is that posture is something already existing within oneself, without any need to buy it from anywhere else.
A simple rule is when changing posture from one position to another, breathe a little deeper than usual and contemplate that this is the nature of breathing in long, and this is the nature of breathing out long. Do it only once and try not to be aware beyond that. For the word ‘changing posture’, it means alternating positions between sitting, standing, walking and reclining, including turning oneself, or laying in a certain posture. For beginners, the finer movement, such as moving arms, legs, hands, feet or head, is considered to be inapplicable, as it might be too subtle.
Once being aware of your breath, you should further ask yourself about your overall feeling physically at that moment whether you are comfortable or uncomfortable. Just only observe that much. If you feel indifferent, just take it as being comfortable. If you feel sluggish, you can count it as being uncomfortable. Compare the difference between changing posture during comfortable breathing and changing posture during uncomfortable breathing. Being mindful in such a way, until one is skillful at it will result in more and more awareness of one’s body, having one’s body as a refuge and residence of the mind.
By using the strong emotional reactivities
Here we will emphasize on anger and resentment which frequently happen to general people many times a day. Yet it may be applicable to other reactivities, such as, stress, worries, including having strong sensual desire at an inappropriate moment.
When your mind reacts to things that come in contact with your eyes, or your ears, first of all just accept it as it truly is that there is such an ongoing reactivity. Never try to get rid of it. Then use your breath as a counter to see how many breaths it would take to calm your mental reactivity.
At the beginning, you will feel incomplete, irritable, and bored like you do not have any mood to count your breath and see how many breaths it would take to calm your mental emotion. But once you did it, you will see subsequent encounters to be much easier. When you have a strong mental reactivity, you will start counting your breath automatically. Upon reaching that point, you will find out that you start to take more interest in your in-breath and out-breath even while there is no mental reactivity.
Conclusion
There are various strategies that can be used as an energy-saving tool to pull mindfulness out of a deep mental trench within our minds. This chapter only introduces some practical techniques that most people can use and will gain a fruitful result in a short time, as if applying such tool only for a couple days, your mindfulness would occur more frequently until you are amazed how easy it is.
You will see that only being mindfully aware of your breath frequently, no matter from which technique, your life will change from within. It will affect all of your thoughts and perspective and it will be a stable foundation for you to progress towards advanced levels of Vipassana practice without having any difficulty.
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