MINDFULNESS OF BREATHING I

• Firstly, find your seat.
• Find a comfortable sitting position on a chair or on a meditation stool or cushion. You may like to feel your feet on the floor or sit with legs crossed.
• With your eyes closed or half-closed, just gaze at an invisible spot in front of you. If you are feeling sleepy it’s helpful to keep to the half-closed position so you do not actually fall asleep!
• It’s important that your back is straight and your neck and head well-supported by your sitting position and your back. The back should be in alignment and relaxed, not ramrod straight.
• Take a few moments to feel into your body and allow any tension to be released.
• Now place your attention on your breathing.
• Notice how the in-breath begins. You might want to choose a place where you imagine the breath entering your body – the chest, just below the nose, the throat, the belly or from the earth. Once you have chosen the imagined point of entry keep this for the rest of your sitting practice.
• Notice how at the end of the in-breath the breath naturally starts to descend; follow the breath down with your attention until it reaches the depths of your belly.
• There is a moment here when it appears that there is no breath: a point of stillness and space.
• Then, of its own accord, without our having to do anything, the breath rises once again on the in-breath and the cycle begins once again.
• When you are practicing mindfulness of breathing you may just say as you are breathing in ‘I know I am breathing in’ or ‘I know I am breathing out’. You may then notice ‘I am breathing a long breath’ or a slow breath, a smooth or a harsh breath. The main point of your practice is that your concentration is focused upon the process of breathing itself.
• And distractions from our mind do arise, many, many times. What we do in this case is that we simply notice we have become distracted, either by a body sensation or a thought and we simply say to ourselves ‘thinking’ and then return to the breath.
• This form of mindfulness practice is basic to all meditations. From this we gradually learn that thoughts are just thoughts – it is often our attachment to them and the emotion that arises from thoughts that produces our distress. Much emotional distress occurs when we get lost in ruminative thinking, going over and over the bad things that have happened to us, thus escalating our fears and our dysregulation.

AWARENESS OF BREATH II

• This guided meditation on the breath will help you learn to simply be and to look within yourself with mindfulness and equanimity. Allow yourself to switch from the usual mode of doing to a mode of non-doing. Of simply being. Sitting in an erect posture, either on a straight back chair or on a cushion. As you allow your body to become still, bring your attention to the fact that you are breathing. And become aware of the movement of your breath as it comes into your body and as it leaves your body. Not manipulating the breath in any way or trying to change it. Simply being aware of it and of the feelings associated with breathing. And observing the breath deep down in your belly. Feeling the abdomen as it expands gently on the inbreath, and as it falls back towards your spine on the outbreath. Being totally here in each moment with each breath. Not trying to do anything, not trying to get any place, simply being with your breath. Giving full care and attention to each inbreath and to each outbreath. As they follow one after the other in a never ending cycle and flow.
• You will find that from time to time your mind will wander off into thoughts. When you notice that your attention is no longer here and no longer with your breathing, and without judging yourself, bring your attention back to your breathing and ride the waves of your breathing, fully conscious of the duration of each breath from moment to moment. Every time you find your mind wandering off the breath, gently bringing it back to the present, back to the moment-to-moment observing of the flow of your breathing. Using your breath as an anchor to focus your attention, to bring you back to the present whenever you notice that your mind is becoming absorbed or reactive. Using your breath to help you tune into a state of relaxed awareness and stillness.
• Now as you observe your breathing, you may find from time to time that you are becoming aware of sensations in your body. As you maintain awareness of your breathing, see if it is possible to expand the field of your awareness so that it includes a sense of your body as a whole as you sit here. Feeling your body, from head to toe, and becoming aware of all the sensations in your body. So that now you are observing not only the flow of breathing, but the sense of your body as a whole.
• Being here with whatever feelings and sensations come up in any moment without judging them, without reacting to them, just being fully here, fully aware. Totally present with whatever your feelings are and with your breath and a sense of your body as a whole. And again whenever you notice that your mind wandering off, just bringing it back to your breathing and your body as you sit here not going anywhere, not doing anything just simply being, simply sitting. Moment to moment, being fully present, fully with yourself.
• Reestablishing your awareness on the body as a whole and on the breath as it moves in and out of your body. Coming back to a sense of fullness of each inbreath, and the fullness of each outbreath. If you find yourself at any point drawn into a stream of thinking and you notice that you are no longer observing the breath, just using your breathing and the sense of your body to anchor you and stabilize you in the present.
• Just being with your breathing from moment to moment, just sitting in stillness, looking for nothing and being present to all. Just as it is, just as it unfolds. Just being right here, right now. Complete. Human. Whole.
• As the practice comes to an end, you might give yourself credit for having spent this time nourishing yourself in a deep way by dwelling in this state of non-doing, in this state of being. For having intentionally made time for yourself to simply be who you are. And as you move back into the world, allow the benefits of this practice to expand into every aspect of your life.

MORE:

You can incorporate the above practice into mindfulness yoga practice, at the beginning of the class, at the end of each asana or during the asana practice. Explore all sensations during breath and yogasana practices.