09/24 – 11/12 Mindfulness of Breathing: Ānāpānasati Sutta for Experienced Practitioners

Ānāpānasati Session 1 Home Practice (9/24/25)

• Become aware of the connection between the breath and the body in terms
  of energy. Which ways of breathing feel calming? Which ways of breathing
  feel energizing?
  • If you already have a meditation practice that uses awareness of breathing,
    try feeling the breath in a location other than your usual or favorite location.
• Spend three to five minutes (or longer) feeling the breath in each of the
  breath centers in this ‘map’:
  • Below the navel
  • Above the navel and below the sternum
  • Center of the chest at the breastbone
  • Feeling the flow of breath at the throat
  • Somewhere in the head, at the tip of the nose or farther back in the
    nasal or sinus cavities
• Count the length of the inhale and the length of the exhale. To count five
  breaths in each area, you can count like this for each round of inhalations and
  exhalations:
  • (Inhale) “1 2345…” (exhale) “1 23456…”
  • (inhale) “2 2345…” (exhale) “2 234567…
  • (inhale) “3 23456…” (exhale) “3 23456…” and so on for 4 and 5

Counting the breaths in different areas on our “map” fulfills steps 1-3 and
maybe even 4 in the first tetrad.

The resources included here were mentioned in the first session, and you will
want to refer to them as needed for the duration of our time together. Briefly,
they are:

• Course Assumptions: You don’t have to agree with these, but this is where I am coming from, just so you know.
• Sixteen Steps of Ānāpānasati: In a simplified form, organized into the tetrads
• A reference for Four Foundations (Satipaṭṭhāna), Seven Factors of Awakening, and the Six R technique for re-establishing attention on the breath.
• A visual representation from Bhikkhu Anālayo of the places to rest on the path of Ānāpānasati. Each tetrad has a resting step.
• The sutta in the original Pali, taken from the Amaravati chanting book

Also, some of you requested a video to help you remember the energizing
practice we did in class. This video is different, a little older, and a little
more “yoga like” than “Qigong like”. I like to relax the shoulders more on the
first squatting motion, with the palms facing down. Then I hold the palms
facing each other as I lift through the chest and raise the arms for the full
chair pose.

Breath Center Energizer

The password for this Vimeo file is: ‘breathingCIMC’

Ānāpānasati  II  Session 2 (10/1/25)

Here is some reference material, based on our work in the First Tetrad. We practiced the Second Tetrad this week, which is also listed here. More study material will be provided on that tetrad next week, but this is enough for now, don’t you think! 

This week, for home practice: 

• Continue a regular practice of 20-40 minutes of daily sitting practice, if possible. 

• Try to use the roadmap we have used in class to visit the breath centers in the body 

• Remember that the first resting spot of ‘a calm and relaxed body’ lies with step 4 in this tetrad. 

• Remember that we start out attending to particular areas in the ‘map’ we have chosen, but we end up with a sense of the whole body breathing, using a broad, spacious sense of the body.  Relax any tension that you can let go of along the way as you move through the map. 

• Use the counting of the length of the inhale and exhale for at least the first half of your practice time. 

• Keep 80% of your attention on the feeling of the breath energy in the body, using the other 20% for counting or a meditation word or phrase. 

• Follow along with this guided audio file if you would like 

• Notice at times in daily life, where the breath is felt in the body as you breathe. 

Read as much of the reference material as you would like.  The main points to take away are that breath energy is more than just air. The fact that we can feel, hear, taste, smell, see or conceptualize anything depends on the presence of ‘life-force’, (Pāna in Pali and Prana in Sanskrit), which is always present in each moment of life and which is renewed with each breath.   

Ānāpānasati  II  Session 3 (10/8/25)

Click here for the resource handouts for this session

This week, we tried to finish summarizing the third and fourth tetrads of the sutta to complete our initial review. If this seems like a bit much, it’s probably because we rushed through it.  The first Ānāpānasati practice group takes eight weeks to go through the sixteen steps.  If you are attending this practice group for the first time, you may want to go back and take the Ānāpānasati I to have more time to practice the sixteen steps in detail.

The focus of this practice group is to take what we have learned from practicing the steps of the sutta and to explore how the breath can be used in our everyday life. We will also use it as an aid to gratitude, present moment awareness, and compassion practices. Next session, we will move more clearly in that direction.

This week, we reviewed the classical definition of mindfulness, which consists of three components: diligence, clear seeing, and remembering to be present.

We talked more about the “seclusion,” Viveka in Pali, and how it’s talked about in the teachings as being a threefold physical-seclusion, mental-seclusion, and seclusion from all attachments.

We tried out the “Tibetan tools,” supplemental material from the Mahayana tradition, which came much later than the practices in the sutta. We discussed how they form an extension of “applied and directed thought,” used to create mental seclusion and develop one-pointedness of mind. A guided audio is provided.

Practice:

1. Continue to work through the steps of the sutta, remembering that the main point is setting up the conditions that will allow you to experience the resting spots in each tetrad.
2. Try the optional Tibetan visualization.  If it helps, use it for the first tetrad.  If not, just drop it. Finish the first tetrad with a sense of spacious awareness of the whole-body breathing: “Full body breath awareness”.
3. As you reach the third tetrad, settle into steps 11-12. Steadying the awareness and noticing what we are attaching to in this flow of experience. Practice Vipassana. The breath can move more to the background as we are with whatever arises in the mind. In the fourth tetrad notice the coming and going of things more than the detail of each mind object that arises.
4. Lastly, don’t forget to take the breath with you on a walk!

Ānāpānasati  II  Session 4 (10/15/25)

Click here for the resource handouts for this session

1. We began to move toward using Larry Rosenberg’s “Three Steps to Awakening” as way to condense and simplify the sixteen steps into three. The chart in the resources shows how the two align. After Larry was taught the full sixteen steps by Ajahn Buddhadasa, the renowned Thai teacher, told him the sixteen steps could be condensed into two, calm the mind, and investigate with vipassana. After years of teaching, Larry came up with the three steps, which is notable for the emphasis on fully embodied breathing, as we are doing in our group, and also for “choiceless awareness”, a term apparently coined by Larry’s mentor J. Krishnamurti.
2. We explored more of Thich Nhat Hanh’s technique using ‘gathas; or short mindfulness phrases, which are coordinated with the breath. Just as we had, in the introductory sessions, used his technique of measuring the length of the inhale and exhale in walking meditation practice, by noticing the number of steps that each inhale and exhale takes, we tried measuring the breathing using gathas, such as ‘arriving, arriving, arriving’ on the inhale and ‘home, home, home’ on the exhale.

We also used a gatha during the formal sitting practice.   In the resources, read pages 15-22. The gatha we used during the sitting was exercise three, starting on page 21.

Try it on your own this week and continue using a gatha during daily life.  Whenever you feel spacey or distracted, try the “breathing in, arriving home in the present moment, breathing out, knowing it’s a wonderful moment”, which you can abbreviate to “present moment / wonderful moment” or “present moment / precious moment” – coordinating with the in and out breath.

Ānāpānasati  II  Session 5 (10/22/25)

Click here for a link to the PDF of this home practice and the resources for this week.

1. This week, we continued working with Thich Nhat Hanh’s Gathas and practiced substituting his phrases for the instructional phrases that form the 16 steps of the sutta. We also encouraged playing with different phrases when doing mindful walking.   In my own practice, I have found it helpful, whenever using language as a meditative tool, to pay close attention to the effect of the words that you choose.  When using Gathas, we can notice the difference one phrase makes over another.  When engaging in sitting or walking meditation, we can notice how using phrases of different lengths might make a difference.  I might use a longer phrase when sitting and a shorter one when walking.

In the sutta, the Pali phrase “Piti-patisamvedi assasissami’ti sikkhati,” could be translated as “I shall breathe in, experiencing joy” or “I shall breathe in, sensitive to joy.”  How are you affected by one phrase or the other.

• We practiced Tonglen, a Tibetan practice for the development of Metta, which uses the breath.  I have included two sets of instructions, one from Joan Halifax and the other from Pema Chödrön. Try them both and see which you prefer.

Ānāpānasati  II  Session 6 (10/29/25)

Click here for a link to the PDF of this home practice and the resources for this week.

1. We continued exploring using the breath as part of a compassion practice.  In the previous session 5, we introduced the Tibetan practice of Tonglen, using the breath to develop kindness and compassion. Two sets of instructions were offered, one from Joan Halifax and the other from Pema Chödrön. People in the last session seemed to prefer one of these methods over the other. 

1. We also talked about how Ānāpānasati works well with Metta practice, since both emphasize the positive states of ease, and a Metta phrase can be used to help “gladden the mind” in Ānāpānasati step 10. However, the Tonglen practice should be done after establishing some ease, or should be done as a separate practice altogether, since Tonglen starts the actual meditation by getting in touch with challenging emotions.  

2. In Tonglen, as an alternative to changing from ‘darkness’ to ‘light’ within one cycle of inhaling and exhaling, you can try taking several breaths, as many as you need, to soak in the feeling of difficult emotions such as despair, anxiety, or aversion, focusing mainly on the inhale.  Then, while giving light and relief for an equal amount of time, focus mainly on the exhales. Step 4. Below, does show one way they could be combined in a short Gatha. 

2. In addition, the usual instructions for Metta can be, and often are coordinated with the inhale and exhale.  Play with this.   The resources this session contain two copies of a Metta chant, one of which is divided into a suggested way to coordinate a silent chant with the in and out breath. 

3. Continuing our work with Thich Nhat Hanh’s ‘Gatha’ forms. Work with the creation of your own Gathas to help you remain mindful or to remind you to invite compassion into the moment. You may choose to pick a particularly triggering situation. As examples: A time you made a mistake and you felt foolish, a time you saw that your impatience caused you to be careless, or a time that you received some criticism and felt ‘not enough’. What phrase would be valuable and helpful? What key words could you pull out to coordinate with the breathing?

4. In the third example above, receiving criticism, the Gatha phrase could be merged into the Tonglen practice we did earlier, breathing in to acknowledge the dark and heavy and transforming the dark to stability and light on the out-breath: 
   • “Breathing in, I feel the hurt of feeling ‘not enough.’  Breathing out, I know I am solid as a mountain and confident in my inherent worth.” 
   • Shortened to: (Breathing in) “Feeling hurt” (Breathing out) “Feeling solid” 

Ānāpānasati  II  Session 7 (11/5/25)

Click here for a link to the PDF of this home practice and the resources for this week.

1. This week we continued work with Gathas and created short words to use with the breath, short mindfulness Gathas, which were drawn from the text of the sutta itself.  Try these as you practice this week.   Feel free to use different words and make it your own, as a tool you could use in a formal sitting practice, but also something that might work well with walking practice, or during another activity where your intention is to be present. 
2. At the beginning of the sutta, it states that the purpose of Ānāpānasati is to fulfill the practice of the Four Foundations of mindfulness, which in turn helps develop the Seven Factors of Awakening.  Reflect on the “Seven miracles of mindfulness” we read in the group, which Thich Nhat Hanh taught at an Ānāpānasati retreat in Vermont in 1998. 
3. Continue working with the Metta chant handout.  Is there a phrase from the chant that you can turn into a helpful Gatha for yourself? 

Ānāpānasati  II  Session 8 (11/19/25)

Click here for a link to the PDF of this home practice and the resources for this week.

In this second eight-session practice group on the Ānāpānasati sutta, we have explored ways of using our awareness of breathing and our experience of breath energy as our immediate connection to the present moment.  We have explored not only using the steps of the sutta in the formal practice of sitting but also using the breath when walking, using the breath when practicing metta and tonglen, and using the breath in daily life.  We used breath awareness in conjunction with gatha phrases to remind us to be in the present in ways that encourage wholesome attitudes and qualities of heart and mind, no matter what activity we are involved in.

• We talked about creating short moments of renewal and acceptance throughout the day, perhaps by using an acronym like RAIN or RENEW.
• The two handouts offered this time are a booklist of additional readings, including links to some which are freely offered, and a revised version of the RENEWAL practice, which includes some gatha verses.

If you signed up at the last session to exchange emails, I will get that list to you after Thanksgiving!

If you were not at the last session and want to be on the list, send me an email at jim@jimaustin.net, and I can add you before I send the list out to the group.

May your practice remain fruitful, and may you maintain your ease and well-being, for your own benefit and for the benefit of all beings!

With kindest regards,

Jim