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How to do mindfulness of breathing according to the Sutta. Bhante Vimalaramsi.
...
and there is one step in the Suttas that is not mentioned in the commentaries. And when you
add this one step to your meditation it changes the entire meditation.

Are you doing mindfulness of breathing? Is that the meditation that you are practicing mostly
here? Ok. I'll give you the instructions on the mindfulness of breathing according to the
Sutta and you'll see that it is a little bit different than what you are being taught.

It says, and there are four sentences that give the instruction:

When you take a long in-breath you understand that it's a long in-breath.
When you let the long out-breath you understand that it's a long out-breath.
You understand that it's a short in-breath, and when it's a short out-breath.

Now, did anyone hear me say nose, nostril tip, upper lip or abdomen? No because that's not in
the instruction.

It just says "you understand" when you take a long breath and when it's short. You understand
when the breath is big and when it's small. You understand when the breath is fast and when
it's slow. That's all this means.

Now the next part of the instructions are where it tells you exactly how to train your mind.
Now with these instructions, it does not ever mention any location for watching the breath.

And it doesn't say only to focus only on the breath. And I'll show you that in just a moment.
The next part of the instructions say "He trains thus." He, meaning anybody doing the
practice.

You experience the entire body on the in-breath and you experience the entire body on the
out-breath. That means the whole physical body. It does not mean the breath body. It means
the physical body.

Then the instruction go on further and say: you train this way: On the in breath you
tranquilize the body formation. On the out-breath you tranquilize the body formation.

Now what does this mean?

On the in-breath: relax. On the out-breath: relax.

This is the step that the commentaries leave out. I will explain the importance of this in
just a moment.

The way that you practice the meditation is that you, every time mind's attention moves from
the breath and relaxing, to a distraction (sound, feeling, thought..) every time mind's
attention moves, there is a tension and tightness that arises in your head and in your mind.
That tension and tightness is "craving". That is how you can recognize when craving arises.

It's not a big tension or tightness and if you don't look for it you won't see it; you won't
even recognize that it's there. It's a little tightness that happens in the head itself.
Your brain is like this (shows a fist) and there's a membrane that goes around the brain,
kind of holds everything together. Every time mind's attention moves, that membrane tightens
a little bit.

On the in-breath you relax, you feel your mind, you feel your brain kind of open up and it
kind of opens up and becomes calm. What you have just done is let go of craving.

When you let go of craving, that is the cause of suffering, and you let that go that is the
cessation of suffering. When you let go of that tension and tightness, let's say your mind is
distracted by a thought, you let the thought go and you relax right then. You feel that kind
of openness and become calm, but also you notice that there is no thoughts at that time. You
notice that mind is very clear and bright at that time and you bring that mind back to your
object of meditation. Your object of meditation is the breath and relaxing.

You don't focus only on the breath. You use the breath as the reminder to let go of the
craving, to let go of that tension and tightness.

You do that on the in-breath, you do that on the out-breath, there's a distraction, you let
go of the distraction, you relax. Now smile! And this is something that people don't think of
when they're doing the meditation.

I've been to many many many meditation retreats. I've taken allot of meditation. I've done
allot, probably 12 3-month retreats, I did an 8 month retreat, I did a two-year retreat. So I
do know about meditation retreats. When I go to a retreat and I look at the people, almost
everyone is sitting with a very sour face, and they are kind of working very hard and they
got these deep lines in their face, and I have a tendency when I find someone doing that, to
go and tap them (on the brow) Lighten up, don't be so heavy. Mostly that is because they are
practicing a form of absorption concentration.

Now what is the difference between what I just suggested that the Buddha said, and the way
that most people are practicing?

Your mind is on your object of meditation, on the breath, the mind gets distracted, when you
are practicing absorption types of concentration you let go of the distraction and
immediately come back. Now what are you doing? Because you haven't relaxed that tension and
tightness, you're bringing the craving back to your object of meditation. And that changes
the meditation allot, not just a little bit.

What I'm showing you is, your mind is on your object of meditation, That's the same. There is
a distraction. That's the same. You let go of the distraction. That's the same. But you add
one extra step. You let go of that tension and tightness before you come back to your object
of meditation. That changes the meditation and you don't go into absorption concentration
when you do this.

Now I practiced Vipassana meditation for 20 years. I went through all of the insight
knowledges and I was not satisfied with the end result. I was never taught to relax that
tension and tightness.

...

Recognize when mind is distracted.
You release the distraction. Let it go.
You relax the tightness.
Now you re-smile.
Return to the object.
Repeat.

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