This is not a practice thread per se. More a place to explore, make notes and ask questions. Feel free to hijack it for your own ends, I'd be delighted

Background

• I've done 4 Goenka courses. This has been my main practice over the last 12mths. I have been practicing about 18mts.
• Im mostly a dark night yogi
• I want to explore anapanasati as a complete practice, within the wider context of satipatthana.

Mindfully he breathes in...

I've seen quite a few approaches to anapanasati. A few examples might be

• TWIM where they read the sutta as a progression though the material and immaterial jhanas,
• Goenka, where focusing on the anapana spot and noticing the breath "as it is!" is the way forward. I imagine if you went on one of their long courses you might get past contemplation of the body but I only did the 10 day ones
• As a pure samatha practice used to calm the mind before switching to the "real work" of vipassana
• As a step by step vipassana practice like Bhuddhadasa and his student Larry Rosenberg
• As a minimal pracice. (You just focus on the breath, and those 16 things will just happen!)

I imagine there are many more in the mahayana and vajrayana practices.

What Im practicing
I've taken to following the steps according to Buddhadasa's book "Mindfulness of Breathing". Its an exceptionally good read. I can't believe I've had it sitting on the shelf unread for almost a year! Im also referring constantly to Bhikku Analayo's "Satipatthana, The Direct Path to Realisation".

By my best guess I'd say depending on how you interpret the sutta Im either at the end of the 1st tetrad having calmed the mind down to the fourth jhana, or at the end of the 2nd tetrad for the same reason.

The question is, if the 2nd tetrad is concerned with vedana (as per Buddhadasa) then have I contemplated vedana by going through the jhanas or is there still work to do? If so, what is the contemplation here?

Buddhadasa talks about the long/short breaths as separate contemplations. One should "regulate" the breath and explore the effects of the long breath, and then the short. How does it affect the body? The mind?

I've found Analayo's explanation to be better suited to me. He explains that the first two lines imply a progression as one focuses on the breath. It's true. If you watch the length of each breath, noticing if it is shorter or longer than the last AND pay attention to it's effects on the body and mind the breath will naturally shorten and become very fine.

This has led to both an excess of piti and before that an excess of tension in my practice as the breath gets extremely fine and the mind very one-pointed.

The way forward I've found (with much help here at the DhO!) is partly to relax into it, (familiarity with an oft repeated experience no doubt plays a part here also), partly to regulate it (don't left it get to fine/one-pointed before I'm ready) and partly to diffuse the attention at the optimal moment in step 3.

"thoroughly experiencing all bodies" is taken to mean the flesh-body and breath body. One contemplates the effect one has on the other. I've noticed that this happens automatically now, though this was not always the case. As I breathe I can feel a flow of energy through the flesh body that is intimately linked to the breath. I can feel the breath conditioning the body. It's like both bodies become one. If I focus I can also see different "strands" of energy. One of those strands is clearly the as yet immature feeling of piti --this has led me to believe that piti is actually always there. I'm not creating piti when I enter jhana, I'm noticing it. It's the sustained one-pionted attention on it that makes it "arise".

'Calming the body-conditioner I shall breathe in' in my best interpretation is linked/merged/one with steps 5 and 6 of experiencing piti and sukkha. As the breath is calmed by a mixture of anapana spot, body awareness/linking and finer and finer mindfulness it slowly creates the jhanas. Not the jhanas Buddhadasa talks about (commentarial jhanas) but the softer jhanas one can think in. Known here on DhO as sutta jhanas I believe.

I'll talk about those when I make some notes n the 2nd tetrad.

More learned and differing opinions much appreciated...