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The furniture of the seat should not dig into the underside of your thighs.

Your eyes can be open or closed.

You want to achieve a state of complete physical stillness, yet you dont want to fall asleep.

You want to promote a totally settled state of the body, which will engender a corresponding mental settling.

There must also be a state of physical alertness, which can induce the kind of mental clarity you seek.

Your body is a tool for creating desired mental states.

What to Do with Your Mind we teach is called insight meditation.

As we have already said, the variety of possible objects of meditation is nearly unlimited, and human beings have used an enormous number down through the ages.

There are meditation teachers who teach their students to follow the breath by watching the rise and fall of the abdomen.

Others recommend focusing attention on the touch of the body against the cushion, or hand against hand, or the feeling of one leg against the other.

The method we are explaining here, however, is considered the most traditional and is probably what Gotama Buddha taught his students.

The Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddhas original discourse on mindfulness, specifically says that one must begin by focusing the attention on the breathing and then go on to note all other physical and mental phenomena that arise.

We sit, watching the air going in and out of our noses.

At first glance, this seems an exceedingly odd and useless procedure.

Before going on to specific instructions, let us examine the reason behind it.

The first question we might have is why use any focus of attention at all We are, after all, trying to develop awareness.

Why not just sit down and be aware of whatever happens to be present in the mind In fact, there are meditations of that nature.

They are sometimes referred to as unstructured meditation, and they are quite difficult.

By that we mean that we become trapped, wrapped up, and stuck in the thought chain.

One thought leads to another, which leads to another, and another, and another, and so on.

Fifteen minutes later we suddenly wake up and realize we spent that whole time stuck in a daydream or sexual fantasy or a set of worries about our bills or whatever.

thought you are simply aware of with bare attention feels light in texture there is a sense of distance between that thought and the awareness viewing it.

It arises lightly like a bubble, and it passes away without necessarily giving rise to the next thought in that chain.

It sucks you in and grabs control of consciousness.

By its very nature it is obsessional, and it leads straight to the next thought in the chain, with apparently no gap between them.

Conscious thought sets up a corresponding tension in the body, such as muscular contraction or a quickening of the heartbeat.

But you wont feel tension until it grows to actual pain, because normal conscious thought is also greedy.

It grabs all your attention and leaves none to notice its own effect.

The difference between being aware of the thought and thinking the thought is very real.

But it is extremely subtle and difficult to see.

Concentration is one of the tools needed to be able to see this difference.

Deep concentration has the effect of slowing down the thought process and speeding up the awareness viewing it.

The result is the enhanced ability to examine the thought process.

Concentration is our microscope for viewing subtle internal states.

We use the focus of attention to achieve one-pointedness of mind with calm and constantly applied attention.

Without a fixed reference point you get lost, overcome by the ceaseless waves of change flowing round and round within the mind.

We use breath as our focus.

It serves as that vital reference point from which the mind wanders and is drawn back.

Distraction cannot be seen as distraction unless there is some central focus to be distracted from.

That is the frame of reference against which we can view the incessant changes and interruptions that go on all the time as a part of normal thinking.

Ancient Pali texts liken meditation to the process of taming a wild elephant.

The procedure in those days was to tie a newly captured animal to a post with a good strong rope.

When you do this, the elephant is not happy.

He screams and tramples and pulls against the rope for days.

Finally it sinks through his skull that he cant get away, and he settles down.

At this point you can begin to feed him and to handle him with some measure of safety.

Eventually you can dispense with the rope and post altogether and train your elephant for various tasks.

Now youve got a tamed elephant that can be put to useful work.

The tamed elephant who emerges from this process is a well-trained, concentrated mind that can then be used for the exceedingly tough job of piercing the layers of illusion that obscure reality.

The next question we need to address is Why choose breathing as the primary object of meditation Why not something a bit more interesting Answers to this are numerous.

useful object of meditation should be one that promotes mindfulness.

It should also be something that will not embroil us in those states of mind from which we are trying to free ourselves, such as greed, anger, and delusion.

Breathing satisfies all these criteria and more.

We all carry it with us wherever we go.

It is always there, constantly available, never ceasing from birth till death, and it costs nothing.

Breathing is a nonconceptual process, a thing that can be experienced directly without a need for thought.

The sensation of breath is subtle, yet it is quite distinct when you learn to tune into it.

It takes a bit of an effort to find it.

Youve got to work at it, but not too hard.

For all these reasons, breathing makes an ideal object of meditation.

Breathing is normally an involuntary process, proceeding at its own pace without a conscious will.

Yet a single act of will can slow it down or speed it up.

Make it long and smooth or short and choppy.

The balance between involuntary breathing and forced manipulation of breath is quite delicate.

Then, too, that point at the tip of the nostril can be viewed as a sort of a window between the inner and outer worlds.

It is a nexus point and energy transfer spot where stuff from the outside world moves in and becomes a part of what we call me, and where a part of me flows forth to merge with the outside world.

There are lessons to be learned here about self-identity and how we form it.

Breath is a phenomenon common to all living things.

true experiential understanding of the process moves you closer to other living beings.

It shows you your inherent connectedness with all of life.

By that we mean it is always occurring in the here and now.

We dont normally live in the present, of course.

We spend most of our time caught up in memories of the past or looking ahead to the future, full of worries and plans.

The breath has none of that other-timeness.

When we truly observe the breath, we are automatically placed in the present.

We are pulled out of the morass of mental images and into a bare experience of the here and now.

In this sense, breath is a living slice of reality.

mindful observation of such a miniature model of life itself leads to insights that are broadly applicable to the rest of our experience.

The first step in using the breath as an object of meditation is to find it.

What you are looking for is the physical, tactile sensation of the air that passes in and out of the nostrils.

But the exact spot varies from one person to another, depending on the shape of the nose.

To find your own point, take a quick deep breath and notice the point just inside the nose or on the upper lip where you have the most distinct sensation of passing air.

It is from this point that you will follow the whole passage of breath.

Once you have located your own breath point with clarity, dont deviate from that spot.

Without having selected such a point, you will find yourself moving in and out of the nose, going up and down the wind-pipe, eternally chasing after the breath, which you can never catch because it keeps changing, moving, and flowing.

If you ever sawed wood you already know the trick.

As a carpenter, you dont stand there watching the saw blade going up and down.

You fix your attention on the spot where the teeth of the blade dig into the wood.

It is the only way you can saw a straight line.

As a meditator, you focus your attention on that single spot of sensation inside the nose.

From this vantage point, you watch the entire movement of breath with clear and collected attention.

This is not a breathing exercise of the sort done in yoga.

Most beginners have some trouble in this area.

In order to help themselves focus on the sensation, they unconsciously accentuate their breathing.

The result is a forced and unnatural effort that actually inhibits concentration rather than helping it.

Just let the breath move naturally, as if you were asleep.

Let go and allow the process to go along at its own rhythm.

This sounds easy, but it is trickier than you think.

Do not be discouraged if you find your own will getting in the way.

You may find it frustrating for a while, but it is highly profitable as a learning experience, and it is a passing phase.