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Buddhism
January 2009 
Meditation on Mindfulness of Breathing (Anapanasati)
Posted on Apr 11th, 2008
by 
True Eloquence
True Eloquence
Anapanasati is one of the most important methods of Buddhist meditation. The Buddha Himself recommends this meditation as follows: If it is cultivated and developed, it is peaceful and a delightful way of life. It conquers all evil.
- Ana means breathing in. apana means breathing out. Sati means mindfulness or awareness or recollection.
- So, anapanasati means “Mindfulness of In and Out Breathing”, or just “Mindfulness of Breathing”
- We may divide this meditation into four stages, as follows:
- In the first two stage, we use counting to help us become mindful
- In the first stage, we breath in and out, and then count (one, two… up to seven, repeatedly).
- In the second stage, we count first, and then breathe in and out.
- After these two stages of counting, our breathing becomes more refined.
- Our concentration also becomes better.
- In the third stag, we do not count anymore: We simply follow our breathing.
- We watch our breath going in and out, becoming long or short, deep or shallow.
- In this stage, we develop our mindfulness (sati)
- Our Breathing also becomes more and more refined.
- As we have stronger and stronger mindfulness of our breathing, our mind becomes more and more concentrated.
- Finally, in the fourth stage, we are able to concentrate on one fixed point
- – for example at the tip of our nose.
- If we go through these stages properly, our body and mind can become increasingly calm.
- We also experience more and more mental peace and joy.
- According to Buddhaghosha’s Visuddhimagga, anapanasati is a samatha method.
- This means that it can only lead to concentration, but not insight.
- But, if we understand the method properly, we can see that it should lead to insight too:
- First of all, it is a practice of mindfulness using our breathing – it helps us to develop mindfulness.
- Like in a vipassana meditation, mindfulness can be used to develop insight.
- Secondly, as the Buddha has taught: He who is concentrated sees things truly – that is: concentration leads directly to insight.
- The rigid separation of insight from concentration is not found in the Discourses.
- In the anapanasati meditation itself, we see that mindfulness leads to concentration (cf. third to fourth stage).
- Likewise, concentration can lead directly to mindfulness.
- In fact, we can properly practice mindfulness only after we have gained some amount of concentration.
- The anapanasati-sutta, and other discourses show clearly that anapanasati practice can also be a method to bring about insight.
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Thank you Assaji for sharing this clear instruction on Anapanasati… really beautiful.
Love how ana means the inbreath and apana the outbreath..No accident that you blogged about this today for me as I spent over an hour in the dentists chair just practicing this very way…I became so relaxed while the dentist drilled away at my teeth that I had trouble remembering to keep my mouth open…
Peace and Love my friend,
Christos
Dear Christos:
Thanks for taking this simple meditation technique with you to the dentist! I am glad that it has helped you to become so relaxed while the dentist drilled away at your teeth lol. I think this meditation sometimes does the magic, as it did to you.
Well, doing this meditation everyday an hour or so (with some discipline and commitment) really keeps you well balanced physically and mentally. If you are a householder, you try to do it either in the morning or evening or both, you will notice that your works are going quite smoothly and efficiently, say if you forget to turn off the light, it won't happen again.
If you are a busy person working in the office, you come back home and feel overpowered by stress and depression, just relax yourself with this meditation and let the calm and peaceful mind speak for you.
If you are a student and doing many hours of classes or reading so much of new stuffs, its really difficult to digest all of them in the mind all at once, so what this meditation can do is it can help you to concentrate and channell all your energies in what you are reading or listening or talking, it will help you to remember stuffs better and you will notice that you can even score higher marks on the exams.
As far as I know even serious meditation-practitioners start thier practice with this anapanasati and finally end in doing a loving kindness meditation (metta bhavana), because after the meditation, you don't just limit the bliss and happiness to yourself alone, but you share with your beloved ones (parents, children, friends, etc,), subsequently to people you don't get along with, to neutral persons, and then to all in your area, towns, country and then you finally expand this same feeling of bliss to all sentient beings seen and unseen, far and near, filling the entire universe and there is no single space that you have left out with your calm and peaceful thoughts.
Now open your eyes and smile…
thank you for sharing dear Assaji