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MEDITATION

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Mindfulness of breathing can function so effectively as a subject of meditation because it works with a process that is always available to us, the process of respiration. What it does to turn this process into a basis for meditation is simply to bring it into the range of awareness by making the breath an object of observation. The meditation requires no special intellectual sophistication, only awareness of the breath. One merely breathes naturally through the nostrils keeping the breath in mind at the contact point around the nostrils or upper lip, where the sensation of breath can be felt as the air moves in and out. There should be no attempt to control the breath or to force it into predetermined rhythms, only a mindful contemplation of the natural process of breathing in and out. The awareness of breath cuts through the complexities of discursive thinking, rescues us from pointless wandering in the labyrinth of vain imaginings, and grounds us solidly in the present. For whenever we become aware of breathing, we can be aware of it only in the present, never in the past or future.

The Buddha's exposition of mindfulness of breathing involves four basic steps The first two (which are not necessarily sequential) require that a long inhalation or exhalation be noted as it, occurs. One simply observes the breath moving in and out, observing it as clearly as possible, noting whether the breath is long or Short. As mindfulness grows sharper, the breath can be followed through the entire course of its movement, from the beginning of an inhalation through its intermediary stages to its end, then from the beginning of an exhalation through its intermediary stages to its end. This third step is called "clearly perceiving the entire (breath) body". The fourth step, "calming the bodily functional', involves a progressive quieting down the breath and its associated bodily functions until they become extremely fine and subtle.
( adapted from "Path to Deliverance Through Buddhism" by D.W.
Edirisooriya. Copies can be obtained from Dr. Kumuduni Fonseka. Call temple for details. )

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