Dearest Friends,

Thank you for your presences and your participation in our gathering today!

In today’s session, we began a new series of explorations on how we can lean on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta as a resource for deepening mindfulness. This revered and beloved text is widely considered as the ultimate “manual” on how to cultivate mindfulness in the Buddhist path. The Sutta outlines four domains of practice—i.e., the body, feeling tones, mental states and mental phenomena—with each domain focusing on a different realm of experience and each having specific exercises. While each of the four domains fulfills a specific purpose, they come together to form a holistic and integrate discipline aimed at overcoming suffering and attaining awakening.

Following a short introduction, we went straight to the first exercise in the first domain of practice (the body) which is mindfulness of the breath (ānāpānasati). Like I shared in my brief reflections, one of the reasons why the breath is such an enduringly preferred object of mindfulness meditation is its flexibility: We can use it to calm and concentrate the mind, and, we can also use it to acquire an embodied understanding of the deepest truths of reality (e.g., the truths of suffering, impermanence and non-self). Hence, even the ostensibly simple practice of being mindful of the breath can be carried out in a breathtaking variety of ways (pun intended).

But perhaps as a starting point, we can reflect on the profundity of this teaching from the Buddhist nun and teacher Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo: “We cannot breathe in the past or the future. So if we are resting on the breath, then we are present.”

SUGGESTED PRACTICE:

Sit quietly and attend to your breath with your gaze lowered or your eyes closed. If you’d like, you can focus your attention on a specific region of the body where the breath is most palpable, e.g., your nostrils, your shoulders, your chest, your belly, etc. As you breathe in, recognize when the inbreath is long and when the inbreath is short. As you breathe out, recognize when the outbreath is long and when the outbreath is short. At the very end of the practice, take a few moments to notice what’s shifted in your experience as a result of the meditation.

REFLECTION PROMPTS: 

1. What did you notice about the quality of your breath—was it long, short, even or uneven?
2. What was it like trying to stay with the breath? Did you experience moments of calm or agitation?
3. How did observing your breath affect your experience during the course of the meditation and after the meditation?
4. What insights, if any, came up for you during the practice?