How to Meditate

 Watch the breath is what they say. But how?

A meditation master I had broke it down like this:

1) Find a sensation in the belly or chest. Watch this.

2) As this become steady find a sensation in the nostril with the air coming and going. Watch this.

3) When this is steady find a sensation on the lip. This is much more subtle. Watch this,

4) When this is steady start to search around sensations closer to the philtrum (that is the middle of the upper lip) and move closer to the middle of the lip. Watch the sensations of the coming and going of the breath as you go.

5) When you get to the middle of the lip hold the attention there as long as possible.

From the previous post and the Tibetan list of stages of meditation there are 2 things to notice. First the steadiness of the concentration and how easily it gets distracted. Secondly there is the brightness of the object.

Even after reducing the length of time distractions take hold, and being able to bring the mind back to the sensation quickly, or even not become distracted I notice that the sensation comes and goes. It is like sunlight on a patchy cloudy day. Sometimes the sun is bright, but then it fades as a cloud covers it.

So the First stage of meditation is to deal with distraction to keep the mind on the object. In this case the sensation of the breath.

The second stage is to hold that attention on the sensation through the coming and going of the sensation itself. Obviously the breath comes and goes so the sensation is a constantly changing thing, but out awareness of that sensation is also changing.

The final stage of this practice of meditation is when we are able to hold attention on the sensation of breathing without it wandering in distraction, and also have the sensation strong and present in our awareness without it wavering.

This I final achievement believe is called "Access Concentration." From access concentration we have the power to see the world as it is without things being obscured. It overcomes all our karmic hindrances, and the impact of memories, thoughts, beliefs, emotions and identity that distort they way we normally see the world. We can now start to examine the truth of the teachings of the Buddha (which are derived from this close examination of the world) in fullness now.

Also from the previous post "Access Concentration" enables us to cast off the Ego. What is going on here is not that "we are attaining" anything, but rather the reverse. We are dropping off all the layers of attachment that we normally surround ourselves with. Greatest of all these is who we think we are. This includes the whole bundle of memories and beliefs we and other people have formed around us. All of them certainly untrue. This very process of surrounding our self with an identity is false from the start. In "Access Concentration" we can see that this is just a shell that we can drop as easily as a jacket. The loss of all these things that unwisely weigh us down is the process of liberating ourselves from suffering.

Holding our attention to the breath then is just letting everything else go. The breath is good, true and real and it is all we need to see the truth. Everything else we can drop.

Once the truth is seen we will have a much more carefree attitude to the layers of clothing if we wish to put them all on again. Our identity now seems more casual and not so essential to us.