In this practice you just observe the natural breath without trying to control it.
Through Anapasati practice, we become intimate with our breath, learning to recognise its patterns and observing how it affects both body and mind.
Technique for anapanasati meditation
Sit quietly in a stable and comfortable posture. Close your eyes and bring your attention to your breath.
For beginners, the best way to do this is to watch the movements of the chest and the abdomen with each inhalation and exhalation.
Do not try to change the breath, just notice the changing bodily sensations as the breath flows in and out of the lungs.
If your concentration is good, you can also place your attention at the entrance of the nostrils, see what works for you!
If (or when!) you get distracted and your attention drifts away, as soon as you notice, gently bring your attention to the breath.
In the beginning, this is likely to happen often, but you will soon find that by diligently bringing your attention back to the breath
every time, the lapses of attention will become shorter and less frequent as your mind gradually becomes more concentrated,
Here are a few questions that will help you stay focused on your breath:
- Is the breath long or short? Deep or shallow? Fast or slow?
- Where is the breath going, high up in the chest or low in the abdomen?
- Are there parts of the torso that don’t move? Parts that are tight or don’t move as freely?
- Is the flow of the breath smooth and even?
- Are there pauses?
- Is the inhalation longer than the exhalation, or vice versa? Or are they both the same length?
Guided anasapana sati meditations (audios)
Note on the Anapanasati sutta
Anapanasati is an ancient practice.
Every meditation technique needs an anchor, and the breath is one of the most obvious one to use.
We know from early Buddhist texts that it was one of the main practices that the Buddha taught his disciples, but there’s no doubt that he didn’t invent it.
Rather, most likely, he learnt it from his early yoga teachers, Alara Kalama and Udaka Ramaputta who taught it as a concentration (Samatha) practice used to reach altered states of consciousness (known in Buddhism as Jhanas and in yoga as Samadhi). Indeed, the breath is one of the best object of meditation to reach these states.
What the Buddha may have discovered, though, is that Anapanasati can also be used as a wisdom (vipasana) practice.
The Anapanasati sutta (the Buddha’s discourse on mindfulness of brething) details sixteen steps, all of them based on the awareness of the in and out breath, which take the practionners through the four foundations of mindfulness (body, feelings (vedana), mind and dharma). These sixteen steps proceed through increasingly subtle subjective experiences towards awareness of the impermanent nature of all experiences. The Anapanasati sutta, by emphasing various phenomenas related to the process of breathing, demonstrates how breath centered practices can also be used to develop insight. Since this discourse was delivered to experienced practionners who had been on retreat for three months, it is reasonable to assume that most of them would have been familiar with the use of breathwork to access Jhanas / Samadhi states.
Because it can be used to develop both calm (Samatha) and wisdom (Vipasana), anapanasati is a meditation practice that will benefit students of all levels, and it should therefore be introduced as early as possible.