Author: Crazywisdom
Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum

A friend wants to learn basic meditation so I want to find some good and simple instructions for shamatha/anapanasati/basic breath based concentrative meditation. I am thinking a page or three, just explaining the basics of attention to the breath and bringing attention back without frustration when distracted etc. I only have long books with instructions scattered all over the place and too much writing on topics that she would be uninterested in or just confused by. Does anyone no of such instructions online? Or have something they could email me? If so that would be awesome.

I have found this page immensely useful:http://www.leighb.com/jhanas.htm

And, more specifically, I think you may be looking for this:http://www.leighb.com/jhana3.htm

Edit: Please make sure that your friend understands the fact one cannot "force" access concentration or any of the jhanas. "Effort" is necessary but that's not the same as "force." Simply following instructions without worrying about results does the trick. Above all, practice is everything.

Best,
Vishal

im not an anapanasati-wallah, but there are definitely at least a few on this board - triplethink and nathan28 (both named nathan actually) spring to my mind. i'd say send a pm to them.

otherwise, here's my best shot, adapted from bhante vimalaramsi's style:

sit in a comfortable position (floor or chair, doesnt matter) that is also erect but not stiff. find a kind of inner balance that makes it easy to sit up without much effort. then gently and patiently turn attention to the breathing process. watch how the breathing affects the whole body, breathing in and out. breathe in, relax. breathe out, relax. dont worry about the condition of the breath (whether its deep or shallow, slow or fast, smooth or ragged, etc). just keep following along, staying attentive, staying mindful. breathe in and feel the body relax. breathe out and feel the body relax. keep that relaxation going along with the awareness of the breath and kind of sink in to it. remember that this is a trial and error process and the mind will wander, get distracted, etc. no problem. just keep coming back. getting too involved in thinking about how well you're doing or not doing = not so interesting. sinking into whatever relaxation you can feel at this very moment = much cooler. try to stay focused, but dont make thoughts or thinking the enemy.. no enemies here buddy, just awareness of the breath and the relaxing happiness that attending to it provides.

keep doing this for awhile, either for a set period of time or just til whenever you want to stop. and remember these are loose instructions.. there are so many ways of doing it, and so many different ways of doing it well. anything that feels intuitively correct probably is, so if the above doesnt resonate completely with you, tweak it.

ps dont forget to find enjoyment in it and have some fun

pps if anyone sees some common sense advice i forgot, pls feel free to add it

In chapter 1 of B. Alan Wallace's "Genuine Happiness," he gives an excellent 4-page description of beginning shamatha technique, followed by some further food for thought: http://www.sbinstitute.com/PDF%20AW.org/GHChapter1.pdf

In fact, all of his books have a succinct description of some sort on how to meditate. Even though his and other's instructions may cover the same ground, I find it very helpful to read new "intro to meditation" material before I meditate, so the more the better!

In relation to the breath, the body is like the earth and the mind is like the sun, each has it's profound effects upon the other. So mindfulness of the breath is an ever present teacher about the mind/body relationship. You can always learn more beginning from that frame of reference, just examine, and continue. In addition to passive observation there are breath techniques. If they involve movement and so on it is best that someone skilled instructs in person and if they are for sitting usually good illustrations and instructions are enough. I don't think any breath techniques are going to cause problems unless they are overdone in relation to the prescribed amounts of time involved for the purposes of the types of techniques. There is a lot of breath and body work in areas like yoga and tai chi that is very useful in relation to being able to direct your more central investigative and liberative meditation work.

You can just experiment to some extent, go ahead and get it out of your system all you like so that you can knowingly relax and take the investigations deeper. What happens when you make the breath long and deep or short and shallow for various periods of time? What happens if you hold the breath in the intervals between expansions and contractions. What are the ranges of your breath, can they be expanded? How long can you hold your breath? Observe the mind body relationships, what leads to agitation and anxiety or contraction of the mind and what leads to relaxation, concentration and expansiveness of the mind? Does this change after time and how and why, and so on. In some important ways each of us has to learn themselves and train themselves because for all of our similarities we are also not ever quite the same. So, take in everything you can about breath meditation, try stuff out and just keep learning, I'm still doing it and learning after three decades.

Author: Adam_West

Hi there CrazyWisdom!

Personally I find the breath profoundly uninteresting and unattractive to meditate upon. I prefer to practice Shamatha without an object - Mahamudra style awareness of awareness - which becomes simultaneous Shamatha-Vipassana - meditating on the nature of mind (Buddha Nature) itself. I spent a number of years working with awareness of awareness and cannot recommend this kind of Shamatha practice enough. In my experience, the result is profound states of bliss, joy, happiness, pranic activity in the body-mind and open spacious awareness. The states of bliss, joy and ecstasy can be so overwhelming that they are disintegrating of the sense of separate self resulting in non-duality. I can't recommend it enough!! :-)

Good luck with your practice! If you stick with it, you will know a life of happiness, satisfaction and freedom from suffering unimaginable to the non-meditator. Truly a worthwhile practice to be sure. Alan Wallace covers much of this stuff in his book, attention revolution, as recently reviewed on this site.

In kind regards,

Adam. *edited* for spelling