I'm having a VERY frustrating time understanding the depiction of the abdomen "rising" upon exhalation as it is written in the instructions under 'basic excersize I' where it reads:

"You will thereby come to
know its rising and falling movements. If these movements are not clear to you in the
beginning, then place both hands on the abdomen to feel these rising and falling
movements. After a short time the upward movement of exhalation will become clear.
Then make a mental note of rising for the upward movement, falling for the downward
movement.  "


So... The upward movement of exhalation is to be noted in the abdomen by means of feeling the abdomen with the hands? 
i am driving myself CRAZY finding any upwards, rising or whatever MOVEMENT (he does not say to monitor sensation of air passing, he refers to movement of abdomen).  What am I missing here?

Hi joe,

It’s simply the upward movement of the diaphragm when exhaling. 
If it’s any consolation, I’ve spent the last few decades counting the inhalation as rising (maybe I was lying down the first time I tried it so the belly seemed to go up on the inbreath) and the exhalation as falling. In Japanese the instruction is “swelling” and “contracting” by the way.
Try to feel what’s actually experienced rather than worrying too much about the words. Good luck!

John :-) 

I ended up being a very successful Mahasi-style practitioner and always used "rising" for the inhalation and "falling" for the exhalation and never had any problems with it.

Really, you could call either "rising" or "falling" and the technique would work just the same.

Also, some people are much more chest-breathers than belly-breathers, so your abdomen might not move much at all, so don't worry about that. Find the breath anywhere, and note it any simple way that makes sense to you, and the technique will work just fine.

Daniel