190: Breath Meditation and Insight

In this Dhamma talk, Sayar Myat explains how mindfulness of breathing (Ānāpānasati) can be practiced as both concentration (samatha) and insight (vipassanā) meditation. Drawing from the Pāli Canon and commentaries, he outlines the 16 steps of breath meditation and the eight practical techniques used to develop mindfulness and clarity.

The talk also explores how observing the touch sensation of the breath — rather than the concept of air or nostril — transforms concentration practice into true insight meditation. By mindfully noting each sensation, from gross to subtle, the yogi directly experiences mind and matter (nāma and rūpa), the three characteristics of existence — impermanence, suffering, and non-self — and progresses toward liberation.

YouTube Video Link

YouTube Channel Link

Website:
www.satipatthana.ca

Donations and Memberships

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Nammo tasambhagato rahmato samma sambudassa namo tasambhagato rahato samma sambu dasammo tasambhagwato rahmato sambudassa Tirabara Buddhism series Dhamma talk number thirteen today's topic is breath meditation and its relation to insight meditation breath meditation can be found in Pali Canon and Commentaries Scriptures also many stealth styled writers had written many articles on it but please do depend on the the scriptural version of Anapanasati so that you are sure you are on the right track I don't usually talk about this breath meditation because I practice pure vipassana sitipatana vipassana however a few online yogis requested to give a talk on this subject a brief presentation of Anapana Siti Sutta will be discussed and its practical approach to vipassana will be presented here in this talk. Mindfulness of breathing can be applied to develop both concentration as well as insight. Concentration line or insight line. Buddha had taught us sixteen places to observe and develop noble concentration associated with the in-bread outbread meditation. As always associated with in-bread outbread, but there are sixteen different places to put along with it. One must observe the nature of the breath, such as long breath or short breath. Also, one must observe the beginning, the middle, and the end of the breath, and also coming down of the gross nature of the breath, and also its association with joy, rupture, happiness, sukka, and mental activities, and calm down of it, coming down, settling down to become settled. And also full-ways association with the mind. How the breath, in breath, outbreath association with the mind, and also full-ways association to the world of let's call it impermanence. Those are the sixteen different places to put your inbread and outbread upon. In breath one, outbreath one, in breath two, outbreath two, up to five, and then one to six, then one to seven, one to eight, one to nine, one to ten, and then back to one to five. That's a counting method. Some of the yogis follow the breath that traversed through the body, let's say, at first, at the nose, and then to the heart level, and then to the stomach level, the air goes in, and the airs come out from your tummy to the heart and to the nose. You follow the breath. That's another technique. And also some observe the touch sensation at the tip of the nostril. That's also quite popular. And some at the tip of the upper lips. In other words, you use force, power, control, to keep the breath on the object, deliberately, forcefully. That's called absorption method. And also focusing on the three characteristics of mind and matter, and so on. And a combination of all the techniques about in a way that your objective is, whether samatha or vipassana. You all know what vipassana is. The three the three characteristics. If you are doing the samatha technique, you don't touch that technique. You touch the others described before. And this anapana sati. It produced temporary abandonment of mental defilements. Kilisa. It doesn't abandon permanently, completely, just temporary. Some very short period. And some people very good and experienced. It seems like it has left three months, a year, as long as you keep up with it regularly. But you must keep on practicing it to keep the mental defilements away. And also to achieve supernormal power. Those are the result of this anapana sati and a samatat lying. Now we are going to connect this anapanasati with vipassana. Breath meditation with inside meditation. A yogi can practice this anapanasati in breath, outbreath meditation till you attain jhana first. And then you must practice that you become very skillful with jhana. Which means you can get into jnana in a very short period and get out at of jnana at will with the predetermined time set period. That means you're very skillful. You are master. You can get in quickly, get out exactly when you want it. You have to practice that first. You must be skillful with it. Then using that ability, yogi must observe and practice repeatedly and observe repeatedly disappearance of the jhic consciousness. You get into jhana, you are with the janic consciousness. You get out of the jnana at that moment, jhannic consciousness disappear. That what one must be observing, the disappearance of the jhannic consciousness. And you exercise that again and again and again and again. The disappearance of the Jhanic consciousness. You can only observe it when you come out of the absorption. And if you repeatedly keep on doing it, eventually the three characteristics of mind and matter will unfold and attain liberation. And that is called vipassana, preceded by samatha. You practice samatha meditation first, you master it, and then you switch into vipassana. Simply observing the disappearance or dissolution of Jhanic consciousness. So that is one technique. The first one is pure concentration method, samatha with in-breath, outbreath, dutain, peace, temporary abandonment of kilisa, and possibly psychical power. This one is vipassana preceded by Samatha technique is to eliminate all form of suffering and attain nippana. Okay. So you still practice breath meditation separately and then using the disappearance of the Jana consciousness, practice vipassana. And also vipassana meditation. Using anapanasati as a tool. In other words, you don't practice till you attain jhana. You don't practice breath meditation till you attain jhana because it will take a long, long time. That means you have lost the opportunity to practice vipassana. So to talk about it, using blood meditation as a tool to practice vipassana, we need to know a few definitions. Or you can see a few Dharma concepts before we start it. Touching, touch. Touching is a Dhamma object. When you see touching, first of all, you must understand it involves an external object. External object that could be physical or mental. That external object touching or come in contact with the internal object, which is sensitivity, physical. You remember sensitivity, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body. Those are the sensitivity. Touching involves the body sensitivity. You must understand it involves external object, internal object, and awareness of the touch. Three things that's called touching. Dhamma object. When one breathes in and out, it involves air. Air. That is an external object. And the air touches the nostril. Nostril is the internal object, sensitivity. And the mind that comes to know that touch. Because the mind cannot know or experience the air unless it touches the body. The air is all around. The mind don't know air all around. It only knows when it touches the body. So those three things, and that is an operation. Breath, nostril, awareness of the body at the nostril. When you breathe it, the air physically touches the tip of the nostril or the upper lip. These points are body sensitivity, nostril upper lip, internal material object. That's where the touch sensation arises. And the mind that knows the touch is mental. So these concepts must be clearly understood. When you say in bread, outbread, in bread, outbread, in breadth, outbread. You must see this diagram with clarity. Focusing on air or focusing on nostril is paying attention to concept. The air is a concept, vinyatik. Nostril is a concept vinyatik. If you pay attention on it, the air or the nostril, you are paying attention to binyatic concept. Concepts are object of samatha meditation. However, feeling of touch is reality, parmatha. Feeling of touch or touching is reality. And we all know what is the object of vipassana. The object of vipassana is reality. The object of vipassana is parmatha. The object of samata is concept. The object of samatha is binyati. These are the definition one must clearly understand. So it is quite obvious now the yogi must focus on the feeling of touch or the touch sensation. Now you are practicing svipassana using breath meditation as a tool. Then only it will become vipassana. Because touching is parmatha. Reality. But when you are doing so, at the same time, you are still counting. One, one, two, two, three, three, four, four, five, five. Up and down, five to ten. And then five to ten, five to ten. You are still counting that touch. How many times? Counting gives you the sharp awareness whether your mind drifted away or not, or you are sticking constantly there. That's the purpose of the counting. If you miss the series of counting, then you know you've been drifted out. So you're counting, and at the same time, you must pay attention to the beginning of the touch, the middle of the touch, and the end of the touch. In other words, very detail must be known. The moment of the touch at the nostril with the air, and then it carries on a little bit, and finally it ends. Those three parts must be clearly observed, clearly mindful. Special attention must be paid to the end, the dissolution. Special attention. That's one of the key point. The solution, the end. Focus the touch at the nostril. Okay. Because nostril is the body sensitivity. Focus the touch at the nostril. And refining the breath. Or you can say refining the sensation of touch. From the gross nature to the subtle nature. All these are in this process, in this meditation, we call it vipassana. But still counting is a anapanasati. Following from beginning to the end is a anapasatik. And then coming down from the gross. To the subtle is anapanasati. These are the anapanasati tools. They are all there. Even though you are observing the touch sensation. Anapanasati technique, in-breath, outbreath, meditation techniques are still in operation. Except the mind is inclined to the object of reality. Not on the conceptual object, such as air or the nostril, physical rupa aspect of it. The object must be reality, parmata touching. That's it. That's a switch. You are observing the touch sensation of breath. And when you are mindful with proper breath medication tactic, you will feel hot, cold. You can feel the movement. You can feel the vibration. You can feel gross nature of touch and slowly become very subtle. Nature of touch. These will be unfolding. What is that? That is Mahabuddha. Four Greek elements of Rupa. Materiality. So what are we doing? At that moment, we are practicing Kaya Nupasana, mindfulness of the body. Okay. We are practicing anapana sadd, but we are unfolding the four great elements because we are practicing mindfulness of the body. Note all these things. Hot, cold, gross, subtle, and so on. Everything when they arise, be aware, be aware, be aware sharply. Be aware only. Do not reflect on it. Do not think about it. Do not connect it with theory. Simply be aware of hot, cold, long, short, grow, settle. Don't reflect, don't think. Anapanasati. Mindfulness of the body. And then there also you are discovering so many things. And you feel very pleasant. Because when the touch becomes so subtle, refined, the pleasant sensation arise. Know the pleasant sensation. Or there might be a pain because of the back pain. Keep pain. Unpleasant sensation. Know that. Be aware of it. What are you doing? You are practicing mindfulness of the feeling. Vedana nupassana. You're feeling happiness. You're feeling blissful. Pleasant feeling. Mindfulness of the feeling. Vedana nupassana. You don't have to go and think that way. Right now it's explained and you must understand these things clearly. But when you are in the mode of meditation, no thinking, no reflecting, simply experiencing, experiencing, experiencing. Mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of the feeling. And once you got to that very pleasant, happy, blissful feeling, slowly and slowly, the breath itself become imperceptible. You can't even detect it imperceptible. And the word breath become imperceptible. What happened is the touch or the feeling of touch also become imperceptible. You can't detect the touch anymore. So it seems like there's no touching. And it seems like there's the knowing because of the sati mindfulness. But there's nothing to know. There's no object to know because touching is so fine, imperceptible, can't detect. There's no object to know. So it seems like there's only knowing. There's only knowing, but nothing to know. At that moment, be mindful. The key word is be mindful of the fact of knowing. Be mindful of the knowing. Be mindful of the knowing mind. In other words, mindful mind, observing the knowing mind. Mind mind. What is it? Jitta nupassana mindfulness of the mind. Rupa nupassana Vidana Nupassana Jaitana Nupassana. All in there. It's unfolding. You are practicing as Buddha taught. You are experiencing. But you are practicing anapanasati. But using the objects. Parmatta object reality. During this whole process, you are practicing, practicing. Anapanasati with the Parmatta object. Pain will arise during this process. At different stages, thoughts will arise, mental activities, feeling of gladdening will arise, gladdening of mind, joy, rupture, pity, bliss, happiness, sukkat, and also all sort of signs. Signs. I won't go into detail how those signs are manifest. When you experience it, you will know. All the signs will arise during this process while you are meditating. These will arise. Pay attention to each and every one of them till they disappear. But the key thing is don't block them. Don't push them away. If you block and push them away, it becomes samatha, concentration, meditation. If you don't block them, if you don't push them away, observe till they disappear. From the moment they arise till they disappear. That is vipassana. You embrace everything at the moment, at the present moment, whatever it is with full awareness. Then once they disappear, go back to the touch sensation. At the nostril, created by breath meditation, anapanasati. Make your concentration stronger. How? By picking up every object of arising at the moment. If you can pick up every object of arising at the moment, your concentration becomes stronger and stronger and stronger. And also you can make your insight vipassana stronger. How? By observing the object ever more deeply and penetratively, which means not superficially. From the superficiality into deep penetrative observation creates stronger insight, stronger vipassana. Then the three characteristic anitcha, impermanence, dukkha, suffering or dissatisfaction, and nata, non-self, no soul will unfold by itself if you are practicing exactly as it should be. Eventually three there, eventually there remains. Only two Dharma. Rupadharma. What is Rupad Dharma? Touch sensation touching. The touching of external object and internal object. But in here is simply touch sensation, nothing else. Pure touching. Pure touch sensation. Rupadhamma. And the pure awareness of that touching. Nama Dhamma. Just purely aware of this touch sensation. Nothing else. Nama Dhamma. Two Dhamma, Rupadham and Nama Dhamma. But there is no I. There's no self. There is no soul. You will experience it. You don't have to tell or think or interpret or figure out. At that moment, two phenomena are in operation. Rupa Dharma and operation, Nama Dhamma and Operation. And that is the complete picture. No eye, no self, no soul. And finally, finally. Cessation of Boddharma. Cessation of mind and matter. That's the end of it. Cessation of the Boddharma. Nama and Rupadharma or mind and matter. So with this practice, one can attain Pat wisdom. Magatnana in this very life. And if you don't attain Pat wisdom in this very life, you have accumulated a great parami for the next life. And that is how vipassana is practiced using anapana sati as two. In a pure vipassana, we focus on the movement of the abdomen created by breath. So actually the only difference is the focusing point. Anapanasati focus at the tip of the nostril. Mahasī tradition focus on the abdomen created by breath. It's the same. The air, the breath, the focus point, the focal point is different. But with the abdomen, you cannot attain jhana. With the abdomen you cannot attain. You cannot get into psychical power, but purely straight into vipassana. With the breath, you can go both lines. Choose what you like. May all of you be able to practice mindfulness and sight meditation, and may you be able to attain Pat wisdom, prevision wisdom, and total liberation from all form of suffering as soon as possible. Thank you very much.