It seems the only times during my meditation practice that something intense starts to happen, my breath also stops. But I don't know/think my case is the ideal case I've heard others mention, where they "don't need to breath". Leigh Brasington wrote this:


In my case, when something begins to intensify, it's usually after I exhale, before inhaling again, concentration will be so much on the object that I don't breathe, yet I do have to breathe. After a few seconds gasping for breath just happens anyway.

Is this "not breathing" a necessary prerequisite for access concentration, or concentration intensify without difficulty of breath automatically happening as well?
If so, I wonder how. I'd consider intentionally breathing in a specific rythm as a base, but I know "controlling ones breath" isn't supposed to work.

Thoughts?

In early insight stages (insight happens when one does concentration practice too, unless one has really bad observation skills), the attention system messes with the breath. It's a phase that will pass. Try not to worry about it. Of course you need to breathe, but it's not like you'll suffocate because of meditation. As you have already noticed, after a while you gasp for air. That's totally fine. The breath will get back to normal again by itself. No need to change the rhythm. And when you reach the stage of your practice when you really do need less oxygene, the breath will get more subtle and slow all by itself as well. 

Lots of micro-events are happening that I am not totally clear on.
Breathing exercises are designed to circulate oxygen throughout the system. With any stale c02 out of the way, the body's ph levels raise to alkaline, purifying the blood. But the major happening is on the cellular level. As this process of oxidization goes on and on, the collective "you" will need to breathe less. Normally cells have to ration the oxygen, but now every store is filled to the brim with fresh air!

There is a lot of stigma attached to reaching this stage. Mostly due to fear of the unknown surrounding the breath stopping, but it's true, you will be fine. The breath is always there, a complete cycle of inhale & exhale just takes much longer.

How many forms of breathing have been cataloged... there are too many to count. Different postures to oxygenate the body in various ways for applicable results. But "Controlling" the breath doesn't really happen easily until the mind is subjugated. 

No, it's not. What Brasington is saying is that it only seems like you stop breathing. Your attention just happens to be focused elsewhere.

I use braisingtons book as my guide also. It seems my breathing gets very slow and non existant at the same time when the pleasurable  feeling come. I think this is when we are supposed to take the pleasurable feelings as the primary object of concentration. It's easy to focus on something pleasurable....sometines here I see a few flashes of light.          This is where i get messed up to.       Do I go  back to breathing as my primary object? Or stay with the pleasurable feelings.    Focusing on the pleasure feels like more stillness  to me .. I just ignore the lights 

That's good. Sensations are naturally the next step. But you can also rest in that spacious state and develope a better handle over it. The breath only feels gone but it's still there just more spread out. Mental hum exercises can help broaden your awareness.
You can always just jump to the next stone though. Can you describe those pleasurable sensations? Is it warm? Does it arise in a certain location of the body?
There is seemingly a sort of ladder system to this but its also true that in each stage there is always, always, something new to learn. Each new bit of insight is always applicable.
The breath is one object, and so too are the sensations just one object. The lights are also just another object. Take this for granted as each can be divided to hundreds more objects themselves. Think about how many objects you want to put your attention on. Maybe right now one object is just fine, or maybe two, the decision is yours. 

You wouldn't walk into the gym and start deadlifting 400 pounds, would you...? You work to that slowly... meditation like that too

Thanks. And good responses from all. In reply to someone else, it's not that the breath "seems to have stopped", but that my diaphragm has contracted to its maximum and—as long as I want to pursue the intesifying concentration—it stays that way. If I gasp, then the concentration breaks and I start again.

What you say, Linda, seems solid. Just breathe in anyway and keep concentrating. Hoping eventually, this constant-concentration will be sustainable even while breathing.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/guided.html

In my experience the Brasington-style "breath starts to disappear" is quite different from "I'm involuntarily holding my breath and my diaphragm is fully contracted."  I've had the breath start to disappear a handful of times when I'm really successfully relaxing and am either hovering on the edge of jhana or am in a light jhana that is starting to deepen and become more formless.  It's more like the breath starts to be tuned out of entirely, like it's the sound on the TV and the volume is slowly being turned down.  It might be jarring at first, but I expect that if you're able to relax to that degree consistently, that you'll eventually just get used to that holding.  I think that successfully getting to that point is equivalent to the TMI concentration stages 7 or 8 where effortless single-pointedness starts happening and physical pacification of the senses starts to occur.

I associate holding the breath and other strange breathing patterns more with insight territory or earlier concentration territory, where there's some bodily tension that hasn't been understood or welcomed or relaxed yet.  In terms of The Mind Illuminated stages, that sounds more like something in the general range of Stage 4-6 or early 7, where you can consistently put attention on the breath but need to use effort to maintain it there.  It may be worth looking at whether you're trying to use to much force or effort to keep yourself concentrated, since that kind of effortful/tight attitude towards concentration may make you more likely to encounter bodily tension and make it harder to actually let yourself go into jhana.

Thanks JP. Yes, I probably err on too much effort. I feel it's either too much or not enough for me. I will revisit TMI, as last time I only read it up to stage four. How do TMI stages compare with, say, the 8 concentration jhanas? Or are all 8 TMI stages phases along the way to the first jhana?

I should mention first that I don't have a ton of TMI experience and that I haven't had even sporadic jhana access for a couple years now.

Cross-mapping TMI stages with nanas and jhanas is kind of tough and a bit controversial.  The TMI stages are ways of categorizing the contin uity of attention to an object, the scope of awareness, and the proportion of non-perceiving mind moments/dullness that's present.  They're also momentary descriptions meant to categorize the temporary quality of attention rather than stages that persist within a meditation session or over days.  The debates over how "deep" in you have to be for jhana to really count also probably enter into it as well.

One way to view it is that entering into jhana successfully means that your attention is effortless for the moment.  So you're at least temporarily in at least TMI Stage 7 or above.   The successive stages of 8, 9, and 10 where various other sensations drop from awareness could be viewed as an axis of entering into deeper and deeper jhanas.  I think Culadasa encourages trying out the Brasington-style pleasure jhanas in Stage 6 or 7 and the luminous/nimitta jhanas in stage 8 or 9.

I can't find a reference for it, but I think I've seen a more official mapping between the PoI stages and TMI stages that's something like Stage 6/7 is A&P, Stage 8/9 is Dark Night, and Stage 10 is Equanimity.  Not sure of the source though.


https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/comments/9b86pl/mapping_the_initial_stages_of_progress_of_insight/

I would assume that one drops to lower stages of TMI during most of the dukkha nanas. At least I tend to do that. It varies, though. Apart from that, I think your description of the TMI system and its function and its relation to the jhanas is excellent. 

Find the middle path between playing with the breath, then not playing with the breath. Then look again, what is the difference? How can you tell? What tells you what? Look again, it's it really what you think or feel? Where is that middle? Try the edges harder, harder... Is the middle still where it was? Investigation!
Good luck,
~D

Hi all

My view is that you don't "do" anything at all, it just happens this way and it doesn't really matter if it happens or not,  at this point of practice ( about access concentration), this is a detail, your body should be so relax that what  happens is that breath stop for a while at the end of exhale, don't hold it, don't change it,  just let everything go as natural as possible,  what really matters is the quietness of your mind, the nice feeling going through your mind and body, this is what you have to take care at about AC, you have to emphasis on that sweetness, it has to be hold, focus on, the breath should go on periphical awareness and the sweetness, joy, pleasure , rapture , whatever you call it , should be pushed like if you were to ingnite a rocket, make it grow as much at you can even if it become not really pleasant anymore, then have a deeper breath, exhale and let the rapture pervade your all body to enter in the second jhana, if the jhana is not stable enough, repeat the all process, this is a way of "loading"  the first jhana, it helps to escape gravity ;-)

This is my experience.

After LOTS of sitting meditation (home retreat), frugal eating, etc, I came to a point where I didn't need to breath.
I'll write this again because it's really like that. I didn't breath. No muscle movement at all. No mind breathing. Nothing.

After some panic (and amazement) I realized that very subtle oxygen flow was moving through the muscles or something near the base of the spine (kundalini). It didn't feel like breathing, it felt like energies moving.

Anyway, after some time (days), oxygen in the muscles began to build and put them rigid, like hyper oxygenation. Some spams began.
Good things were that blockages were removed, concentration and stillness were record, etc.
Bad things were problems to sleep and that I had to stop meditating to stop the build up of oxygen by this unconcious process (some fatty food helped too).
When you sleep, oxygen keeps acumulating in the head area, creating problems.

Kundalini phenomena is (at least in my experience), a process that happens with frugal eating and sitting meditation (concentration) where muscles can transport and use oxygen in a way that is very different from normal breathing.

My experience is that this muscle-mind-oxygen-energies movement-balance-imbalance is directly related to nanas.

In this forum they usually disregard body phenomena and focus too much on mind phenomena.

My opinion and experience anyway.

Hope it helps.

Well, may be you should keep breathing...and eating ...and sleep well at night, that would be good too ;-)

Haha, I do.

Last time it happened (no breathing), was in day 8 of a retreat (I didn't post about that retreat here).
No way you can sleep with that kind of build-up of oxygen in the head. And you can't control what you eat in a retreat.

While it may sound scary (and dangerous), I still consider that it is amazing and beneficial (if well handled and understood).

And if the in-breath doesn't come, well, then, you're off the hook, aren't you?

oops, another good one gone. gate gate gate . . .

 
Can't see what you mean, the breath always comes, if not that means that you are not letting the natural flow happening and this will not help because it usually means that your mind is wandering  about ( fear , anxiety , etc) , just let it go.

I can only speak with personal experience but i do work i lot on jhanas and i far as i can see, focusing on: is my breath this or is my breath that....  is useless for access concentration,eventually in the 4th jhana, breath have a tendency to lower, to become very subtle and it goes with the rising of the 4th jhana so there you can focus on  it and make it like a very thin air stream, very tinny, very gentle, it should come naturrally in the 4th jhana.

Well, so far, yes, the in-breath always comes. But an eon between in-breaths will really get your attention, on the next in-breath. Disorientation is common, in these circumstances.