Talk:Anapanasati
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- "Practitioners are tutored to avoid being disrupted by passing thoughts and to nudge themselves into concentrating on the breathing once again."
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- (a note of dissent) The above might well be consistent with received wisdom but it only reflects the the long held misunderstanding of the technique of anapana-sati. The prime purpose of the technique is to achieve inner silence. Maintaining alertness is the chief difficulty (typically beginners fall asleep). Awareness of the breath is a self monitoring device, when the meditator loses the awareness of their breathing it is because they have instead invested the focus of attention on thoughts and images i.e. they have lost mental alertness and fallen into habits of mind. The first concern for the meditator is to become aware of the fact of fascination he/she has for their own thoughts. Suspending that habitual fascination is the beginning of meditation. If after many years of practice a person can for longish periods of time sit relaxed and alert, with the mind silent, they can then deepen their practice by using a more subtle self monitoring device. This is where vipassana comes in. The key here is not body sensations so much as the fact that these sensations are constantly changing. When awareness of the changing experience of sensations is lost it is an aid to recognising the loss of mental alertness. Anapana-sati will help a person become aware of their stream of consciousness as it is, which will take many years, where-as vipassana tends to open up conscious awareness of the subconscious, Typically the chief difficulty, in vipassana, is falling into the dreamstate even though seemingly awake, hence the value and need for a self monitoring device built in. I hope that is useful. - anon
To explain the above more simply, the stream of consciousness goes by somewhat unnoticed. In just the same way that someone living on a busy road after a while does not hear the traffic, the thoughts we have go by. But if the traffic stops and there is silence instead, suddenly we notice how noisy things are. In just the same way as we develop the skill of sitting in silence (or as it is expressed in Buddhism - calm abiding) the capacity for simply noticing what we do with our minds develops. Inner silence is not as difficult or strange as might first appear. It is something everyone does easily and automatically whenever they pay attention to something. For instance to listen to and hear someone speaking we stop focusing on our own thoughts, in other words we suspend the inner conversation we have with ourselves. Another example is if while watching a television documentary if we start to actively think about something we lose awareness of what we are watching. So typically, when we do watch a documentary we automatically suspend thought. In meditation practice this is all we are trying to achieve as a first result. It is only difficult because there is no external stimulus to focus upon, but the act of suspending thought is simple enough in itself.
The reason I voice my dissent strongly is that anapana (and the related vipassana) is usually taught in such away that the meditator focuses their effort on the breath and to maintaining unbroken constant awareness of it. This is unfortunate because it turns anapana into merely a concentration exercise. It is the suspension of the thoughts which is important and as stated this is not mysterious. The effort needs to be directed towards that end. The awareness of the breathing is a very useful tool but only as a method for maintaining alertness. Habits of mind are the main obstacle and the tendency to drift into the customary state of reverie is very strong. The awareness of the breath has to be something which is incorporated into what one is aware of - not made the focus of the attention in some attempt to subdue the mind. It seems a splitting of hairs but in fact it will make a crucial difference in result.
The breath is usually a subliminal experience, to notice ones own breathing it is necessary to raise one's level of alertness just a little bit. Maintaining that alertness is the key to not drifting into habitual states of reverie. But the task of noticing the breath has to done gently, perhaps in the same way that one might feel the warmth of the sun on your back or the the breeze blowing across your face. Definitely not some kind of strained effort to notice the breath and nothing but the breath.
- (adding to the above) Is it not short-sighted to claim, as the article does, that "practising this form of meditation as a part of the Noble Eightfold Path leads to the removal of all defilements (kilesa) and finally to the attainment of nibbāna (nirvana)." Mindfulness (of breathing) meditation is precisely that tool for building the foundation (samadhi) to conduct the subtler practice of Vipassana, that is, the practice of gaining insight into the most subtle defilement, (spiriorance (ajjiva). I think a distinction is needed, that one form of meditation is, strictly speaking, a concentration tool, which removes what we might otherwise call the gross defilements to make room for the much more important practice of pentrating to the absolute root of dukkha: ignorance (in tanha).
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[edit] no merge
this article shoudn't be merged with breath control. compare the two articles. breath control is that - CONTROLLING the breath. anapana has nothing to do with controlling the breath, but watching the NATURAL in and out breath.
[edit] Language?
Is the word Sanskrit or Pali? AnonMoos 18:27, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- Pali, I'll add it. Obhaso 21:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What's up with the name?
I'm curious if there is a good reason why this article is titled Anapana instead of Anapanasati? The sati, "mindfulness" is what makes the phrase into a form of meditation. The Pali Canon never (as far as I know, and I know, never say never...) simply refers to Anapana but always to Anapanasati, Mindfulness of breathing" May I change the name of the article? Obhaso 21:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
- I am not sure if the image I recently added is representative. Please feel free to remove if it is not. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:12, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Link with pranayama
The first part of this new section is helpful but I wonder if the second paragraph is not too far off the main topic. It's good material, but is this the rigth place for it? Paul 17:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Pranayama and anapana are quite separate practices with definite aims. Pranayama is a yogic discipline aimed at the accumulation of prana in the body as part of the hatha yoga practice of bringing about the suitable conditions for the arising of kundalini. Anapana is primarily a Therevadin Buddhist meditation technique aimed at developing the skill of silencing the conscious activity of the mind and thereby enabling the practitioner to tackle more difficult tasks of bringing subconscious mental activity into conscious awareness which in turn is silenced. The technique employed in this case is vipassana. The two techniques (ie pranayama and anapana) are complimentary and indeed possibly share the same ancestry prior to the advent of buddhism as it is known today anon 14 2 07
