Short breathing vs Long breathing

Most practitioners will say not to worry about it and I agree with the "not to worry" part but sure i'v noticed the tendency of the breath to become shorter the longer i sit. This can also invoke sloth, caused by the shallowness of the short breathing.
The Buddha mentions both types of breathing in the Anapanasatti Sutta.

Most of the stuff we decide to do is volitional and therefore impermanent. Yet most of it is considered skilful (vs un-skillful).
Staring at a Kasina (candle flame) or chanting a Mantra (Bud-dho) or repeating the Koan (who am I) or intelectualy noting bodily sensations (coldness, pain, space, hot, thought, smell).
Before starting to practice Shamatha-Vipassana i practiced Ki-breathing as instructed by Koichi Tohei a famous Aikidoka.
It happened several times that i felt like a very empty space, not just the head but the whole body. I was very alert hearing all sounds from the outside yet they made could not affect this empty and silent space which was devoid of light but was neither pleasent nor unpleasent. It just was. The breathing would together with all the rest go into the background like something else is doing the breathing process. I would loose it each time because i would have that slight WOW sense of "check this cool stuff".
While practicing such long in and out breath i recollect being totaly absorbed in it. In 30 minutes i would experience only a few thoughts, it was mostly the awareness of the breathing process and the whole body.
I never practiced more than 30 minutes and this emptiness feeling would arise somewhere at the end of the session.
The Emptiness i witnessed felt like an inner universe dark-like. It also felt like nothing can invade this place, so in a way there was this pleasentness then. Each day i went back to sit in Seiza i would be desiering for this state to arise but it would never do so. Only when i would let go of the idea and totaly absorb into the process of long-breathing would it arise.

Thanks to reading Buddhas teaching i now have more intelectual and some intuitive understanding of clinging and desire creating suffering so i dont desire to maintain such state but i have realised that Jhana is the way of the Buddha towards enlightenment/awakening.
In 1 1/2 year of practicing Shamatha such state never happened. Only very subtle bliss n joy during the AP and even here the bliss n joy would predominate during the off the cushion time not on the cushion.

I am seriously thinking of introducing the Long breathing into my daily practice of "Breathing In (long) sensitive to the entire body, breathing out (long) sensitive to the entire body".
Experimenting times. Someone said that meditation is a DIY project.

I will only borrow the long breathing from Ki-breathing and not the bending of the body nor exhaling through the mouth nor the visualisation part. Will see how this develops.

Thanks for reading.

Todays practice;
10 min Walking
40 min Sitting
Aditional 20 min sitting
Aditional 60 min sitting

I was positively surprised how fruitful my practice was today, especially because i experienced very weak Effort to practice for a few month now. This was promissing
I feel very much energised all day long. Nice for a change. This path is to be delightful not a dreading one.
Without delight Jhana wont happen.

Used the walking meditation first so to warm up Mindfulness before the sitting practice. Meditation subject: sensation on the feet touching the floor. Many thoughts. Observer behind the eyes. Restless. Stiffness in shoulders. Relaxing willingly.

Sitting meditation:
Started to fabricate the Long in and out breathing and sensing the whole body. The "habituated self" felt like rejecting this new Long breathing addition. Strong aversion towards it. Uneasy sensations in the chest, like a fist is sqeezing the heart, palms vibrating, observer in the space behind the eyes, aversion slowly deminishes.

The breathing is very stiff at the start and is like this for good 10 minutes or so (not looking at watch). The lungs clinging to the breath, as soon exhaled totaly there is this desire to breath in at once. Like thete is no trust that inbreath is to happen anyway. The pause after outbreath started to become longer when the long breathing continued without effort on its own accord.
Strongly sensing the in breath entering the nostrils and expanding the lungs and lower abdomen. Strongly feeling the outbreath diflating the lower abdomen lungs and exhiting the nostrils.
The whole skull just under the skin is vibrating.
Waves of energy surging under the skin all over the body mostly the torso.

Very few short daydreams.
At one stage there was this restless feeling and the self wanted to get up and stop meditating. Stone-like feeling in the stomach. Aversion-wanting to avoid = suffering. Idetifying with sensation indeed leads to suffering.

I re-enforced the awareness to the breath which was not difficult thanks to the breathing being so long and one can hear it clearly. There was this awareness of the sound of the breathing the breathing itself with the in out and pause.

At one stage there was a vision unclear and dusty of a DNA kind of ladder... Not sure what sensations happened when this came....hm.

The room i meditated today was cold. I was dressed properly so not cold but just right. The cold air sure served the body-mind well with it's freshness.

Session after session i felt like doing an additional sitting until my wife asked me nicely to do something together with her and the dog. So we went for a long walk

Off the cushion:
Feel lots of "creative" energy. "Lets do it" "lets rip it" kind of in the sense of practicing meditation that is ;)
There is this calmness in the eyes, behind the eyes, in the very thing looking through the eyes, some sort of understanding and patience. There is this crawling sense of something beneath the skin at the back of my head/skull.

Im off to bed now. Good night ya all.
May all being be happy and free from suffering

While meditating together with my Dhamma friends over Skype this morning i experienced an absoption state. Not sure which Jhana it was. All i can do is describe the sensations.

We meditated no longer than 20 minutes. I sat crossleged, errected spine and neck, relaxed the tensed shoulders, closed the eyes, and Mindfuly began to breath in Long and Deep sensitive to the entire body, breath out Long and Deep sensitive to the entire body.
The breathing was tight for some time but softened and the awareness was clearly percieving the rise and fall of it. Some tightness around the chest area, lots of vibrations all over the head.
At one stage a thought came into the mind "did people in Buddha's time breath shallow or was it normal for everyone to breath deep, abdominal breadhing?" Suddenly the awareness started Zooming In on its own into this question (very strange) and got absorbed in it. I became the question. There was this sense of presence in the very eyes or between them. The head was not light but was not dark either. The head seemed like a planet (bubble like) much bigger than the body and soon it grew so big the whole body was inside of it. I could still hear the outside sounds clearly and felt the in and outbreathing together with the pauses clearly.
This absorbtion lasted until the end of the session. I felt no bliss nor joy. It was not positive nor negative. Content i dare to guess. Equinimous. Certain ammount of pleasentness was there but not much.

Hi Che,

The thread says 'waiting for an answer', but I don't see a question? I do see you telling us 'how it is' and about your experiences, perhaps you would rather make a 'claim to an attainment' and have it examined?





Andrew

Hi Andrew.

Sorry for the question mark. Removed!

Theres nothing much to tell. The early Equanimity stage colapsed into a major Disolution. The last two days were real bad. No practice only swimming in the muddy waters of confusions.

I let go of the Noting practice and am back to simple Calm-abiding (Shamatha).

Be well

Now would be a good time then to keep the journal thread going then. Feeling things fall apart is natural to any progress in life, confusion is quite simply to be expected.

"Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood."

It simply means we have gone beyond our experience and we are exploring without the usual landmarks, it doesn't mean that we are truly lost, all of this territory has indeed been mapped before and sooner or later we come across someone who can clear things up.

describe this Dissolution stage...