Anapanasati

"The awakened mind is the mind that is intimate with all things"

Anapanasati

• Ana: Life energy as it comes in
• Apana: waste as it is expelled
• Sati: Mindfulness

Be on fire with enthusiasm for your practice

4 Tetrads, 16 Contemplations

• Body Group
• Feelings Group
• Mind Group
• Wisdom Group

Body Group

• In long/out long
• In short/out short
• Sensitive to whole body in/out
• Calming whole body in/out

Feelings Group

• Rapture in/out
• Pleasure in/out
• Sensitive to mental processes in/out
• Calming mental processes in/out

Mind Group

• Sensitive to the mind in/out
• Gladdening the mind in/out
• Steadying the mind in/out
• Liberating the mind in/out

Wisdom Group

• Focusing on impermanence in/out
• Focusing on fading away in/out
• Focusing on cessation in/out
• Focusing on relinquishment in/out

"We are always at risk, in every moment, for missing what is richest and deepest in our lives"

Thinking comes between us and our experience

First Contemplation

• While breathing in long, one knows: "I am breathing in long"
• While breathing out long, one knows: "I am breathing out long"
• Goal: Acquire your seat

Second Contemplation

• While breathing in short, one knows: "I am breathing in short"
• While breathing out short, one knows: "I am breathing out short"
• Goal: Stabilize your mind

Be with the breath

• Notice the particular qualities of the breath, the subtle nuances
• Notice your reactions to what is present
• Do not try to change your experience
• Notice the spaces in between

Life begins with our first breath and ends with our last. To contemplate breathing is to contemplate life itself.

Surrender to breathing

• Allow breath to unfold naturally
• Then you can learn to do so with other aspects of your experience
• Relax, let go into freedom
• Allow things to arise, release their energy, then dissolve

"Life keeps on being just the way it is. All of our ideas about it take up far too many precious breath moments."

Develop Lion Mind

Third Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Sensitive to the whole body, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Sensitive to the whole body, I breathe out"
• Goal: Loosen attention on breathing

Body Contemplation

• Notice breath sensations throughout the body
• Body scan, notice each part and changes with in and out breath
• Consider reflection on each body part, and gratitude
• Satipatthana meditation

Body Contemplation

• Body exists, but we do not own it
• Body functions independently from mind, body is in charge
• Our fate is strongly intertwined with this fragile and unpredictable object

Body Contemplation

• Breath recedes into the background
• Breath smoothes out, relaxes
• Body, breath, and mind coalesce
• Breath conditions body, sitting becomes enjoyable
• Observer disappears, leaving stillness

Fourth Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Calming the whole body, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Calming the whole body, I breathe out"
• Invites us to explore the realms of concentrated stillness
• Goal: less monkey mind, ground yourself in the body

Jhanas- 5 factors merge

• Vitakka- energy + mindfulness, bringing attention to an object
• Vicara- evaluation, keeping the mind interested in an object
• Piti- rapture, enlivened energy
• Sukha- pleasure, peace, calm
• Ekaggata/Samadhi- one-pointedness, concentration, nondistraction, nonwavering

On the cushion, you become a tree. You can sit for longer without discomfort. Your deep roots enable you to weather powerful storms.

Jhana states benefit you off the cushion too. You are no longer so vulnerable to how the world treats you.

Fifth Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Sensitive to rapture, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Sensitive to rapture, I breathe out"
• Goal: the practice becomes its own reward

See sukha like a flower, soak it in and enjoy it while present, knowing it is not ultimately fulfilling.

Sixth Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Sensitive to pleasure, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Sensitive to pleasure, I breathe out"
• Goal: see sukha with impermanence to avoid dwelling in it

Mental processes = feelings + perceptions

• Vedana- feelings- Sensations, anything that comes in through the sense doors, including the mind
• Samjna- Perceptions- labels the mind gives to these sense experiences

Seventh Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Sensitive to mental processes, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Sensitive to mental processes, I breathe out"
• Goal: turn toward the feeling, welcome it

Awareness is an energy that transforms anything it comes into contact with.

Eighth Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Calming mental processes, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Calming mental processes, I breathe out"
• Goal: Stay with whatever feeling arise. Let it be. Soften into unpleasant feelings.

"The world is many blooming flowers in a blooming universe"

Let everything blossom. Then it will have life and then depart.
Even fear.
Then we gain the energy we may have wasted trying to avoid it.

In order to become fearless, you have to stand in the middle of your fear.

Conscious breathing and mindfulness take the power out of strong feelings and they lose their potency to propel us into unwise states

Ninth Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Sensitive to mind, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Sensitive to mind, I breathe out"
• Goal: Calm and alert, like the frog. Ready to recognize the kleshas

Alert to the mind

• Satipanna- Citta- mind/heart, mindfulness, wisdom
• 3 Kleshas- greed, hatred, delusion- are they present or absent?
• Ask yourself: "What is in the mind right now?"

Tenth Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Gladdening the mind, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Gladdening the mind, I breathe out"
• Goal: Experience the joy of practice; gratitude for the Dharma

Concentrated mind is joyful (samadhi)
Seeing things clearly is joyful (vipassana)
Or go back through 1st-9th contemplations
Or stay with especially fulfilling contemplation

Master come-what-may seeing

Eleventh Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Steadying the mind, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Steadying the mind, I breathe out"
• Goal: get to know when the mind is concentrated and when it is not- the degree of concentration present.
• You can go back throuh 1-10 and look at role of concentration in each one.

As one-pointedness develops, the mind becomes completely absorbed in the breath. You disappear into it.

Tame the mind by being gentle with it- allow it to be and watch it, like a wild bull in an open pasture

Be the lion.

Twelfth Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Liberating the mind, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Liberating the mind, I breathe out"
• Goal: Liberate the mind by letting go of attachment
• Watch the mind when it clings and when it doesn't.

Study, observe, understand attachment.
Observe the holding on. See what it is like when the mind is not attached.
See what it is like when liberation is absent.

One day engaged in practice is more precious than a hundred years of not practicing.

Thirteenth Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Focusing on impermanence, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Focusing on impermanence, I breathe out"
• Goal: see yourself as a field of energy in a constant state of flux
• Go back through all 12 contemplations from the vantage point of continual change.
• Go back through all 12 and see how you claim experiences as me & mine

No two breaths are the same. Observe with a blank slate. Be present for the birth, life, death, and spaces in between.

Watch mind states change. Is your mind state in contrast to what your body is doing?

" You can't step twice into the same river"

Mind states are no different than weather conditions. The content doesn't matter.

Anicca and dukkha and anatta are the same thing. Suffering and non-self are a part of impermanence the way heat and color are a part of fire.

Fourteenth Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Focusing on fading away, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Focusing on fading away, I breathe out"
• Goal: Seeing that all dharmas are empty, attachment falls away. Letting go happens naturally.

Viraga- "Fading away", becoming dispassionate

You cannot get a grip on a waterfall.

Fifteenth Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Focusing on cessation, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Focusing on cessation, I breathe out"
• Goal: notice the fading away of attachment to all formations.

Nirodha- "Unbinding", the unbinding of the mind from greed, hatred, and delusion. The extinguishing of a fire, Liberation.

Problems are not solved, they are dissolved; burned up by awareness.

Sixteenth Contemplation

• One trains oneself: "Focusing on relinquishment, I breathe in"
• One trains oneself: "Focusing on relinquishment, I breathe out"
• Goal: There is a natural letting go, because there is no longer anything to hold on to.

Condensed Method

• Practice with breathing until a certain level of concentration and calm is achieved
• Open the awareness to whatever arises in the mind-body and see that all is impermanent, unsatisfactory, and lacking an essential self.

Choiceless awareness- sit in the middle of your experience just as it is.

Lay the calculating mind to rest and allow life to come at you. Sit with total receptivity and openness.

Bring mindfulness to routine activity every day.

Daily Mindfulness

• When possible, do just one thing
• Pay full attention to what you are doing
• When the mind wanders, bring it back
• Repeat step #3
• Investigate your distractions