Mindfulness: The Path to the Deathless by Ajahn Sumedho
Book Extracts
Ajahn Sumedho reveals the secret to mindfulness of breath in this book extract.
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‘Meditation’ is a much used word these days, covering a wide range of practices. In Buddhism it designates two kinds of meditation – one is called ‘samatha,’ the other ‘vipassanā.’ Samatha meditation is concentrating the mind on an object, rather than letting it wander off to other things. One chooses an object such as the sensation of breathing, and puts full attention on the sensations of the inhalation and exhalation. Eventually through this practice you begin to experience a calm mind – and you become tranquil because you are cutting off all other impingements that come through the senses.
The objects that you use for tranquillity are tranquillising (needless to say!). If you want to have an excited mind, then go to something that is exciting, don’t go to a Buddhist monastery, go to a disco! ... Excitement is easy to concentrate 19 on, isn’t it? It’s so strong a vibration that it just pulls you right into it. You go to the cinema and if it is really an exciting film, you become enthralled by it. You don’t have to exert any effort to watch something that is very exciting or romantic or adventurous. But if you are not used to it, watching a tranquillising object can be terribly boring. What is more boring than watching your breath if you are used to more exciting things? So for this kind of ability, you have to arouse effort from your mind, because the breath is not interesting, not romantic, not adventurous or scintillating – it is just as it is. So you have to arouse effort because you’re not getting stimulated from outside.
In this meditation, you are not trying to create any image, but just to concentrate on the ordinary feeling of your body as it is right now: to sustain and hold your attention on your breathing...
So this is tranquillity practice. You can choose different objects to concentrate on, training yourself to sustain your attention till you absorb or become one with the object. You actually feel a sense of oneness with the object you have been concentrating on, and this is what we call absorption.
Mindfulness: The Path to the Deathless by Ajahn Sumedho. Aruna Publications 2012.
Book Extracts:
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