Hey everyone. In one of the dharma books I've been reading, the author remarks that it is said that the Buddha practiced mindfulness of breathing spontaneously as a child. I remember running across these paragraphs by Frank Kepple, a guy who used to post extensively about astral projection:
I'm not sure how common this is, but I hold a remembrance of what I call "play states" I used to enter as a child. There was a time in my life, for example, when breathing was a novelty and I used to revel in the wonder of it while lying in my cot. What I found is when I enter this play-state then all thoughts of the physical world at large, simply falls away and it's like the curtains open in my mind. From this point, it's usually just a matter of applying a simple awareness shift and I'm immersed within non-physical reality.
When I say concentrate on my breathing, I'm not concentrating on breathing in any particular way. I'm simply focusing my attention on it and revelling in the wonder of it as a concept.
Now, reading this brings back some vague memories about being interested in my breath as a young child. I'm not sure what happened while I was aware of my breath, but it sounds somehow very familiar. Do any of you have memories like this?
