How To Practice Buddhist Breathing Meditation

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In Buddhism, meditation serves to calm and control the mind and is essential to break the cycle of suffering and attain Enlightenment. Follow these steps for mindfulness of breathing meditation, one of the two simplest meditations.

To complete this How-To you will need:

Understanding and acceptance of what you are going to do
A place where you will not be interrupted
Meditation bench or chair
Cushion
A blanket
A timer, a meditation track on a music player, or a watch or clock
Something pleasant to gaze upon

Step 1: Sit comfortably

Find a position in which you can sit comfortably for the meditation. You can kneel using a meditation bench, sit cross-legged on the floor, or sit upright on a chair.

Tip: Use a cushion to support your back if necessary, and wrap yourself in a blanket if you'd like extra warmth.

Step 2: Decide length of phases

Decide how long each of the four phases of the meditation will be. Five minutes is a good length of time for beginners.

Step 3: Set timer or select music

Set the timer or select a track on your music player that corresponds to the length of time you have chosen for the first phase.

Step 4: Bring awareness into the present

To prepare yourself for the meditation, bring your awareness into the present.

Tip: For a few seconds, focus your gaze on something pleasant, like a plant, statue of the Buddha, or pretty vase, to ground yourself in the present.

Step 5: Close your eyes & become aware of body

Close your eyes and scan your body to become fully aware of it. Begin with your toes and move slowly along your feet and up your legs, back, and pelvis, through your hands and arms, and finally up to your neck and head.

Step 6: Reflect on what you want to achieve

Reflect on what you want to achieve from this meditation—for example, dealing with a particular source of distress or developing your meditation skills further.

Step 7: Commit yourself to practicing seriously

Commit yourself to practicing seriously.

Step 8: Bring awareness to breathing

Keeping your eyes gently closed throughout the practice, bring your awareness to your breathing. Notice everything you can about the breath: the path of the inhalation down your throat, how your diaphragm moves and your chest rises, the slight pause before the exhalation, and how the exhalation passes out of your nostrils.

Tip: To begin, take a slightly deeper breath to help you to focus on your breathing.

Step 9: Count after each breath

To start the first phase of the meditation, count "one" after the first breath, "two" after the second, and so on up to "ten." Then start again at one. Do this for the planned length of time.

Tip: If your mind wanders, bring it gently back to the breath and start counting again from one.

Step 10: Count before each breath

For the second phase of meditation, count before each breath.

Step 11: Be aware of each breath

For the third phase, do not count, but simply be aware of each breath as it happens.

Step 12: Bring awareness to stages of each step

For the fourth and final phase, bring your awareness more precisely to the point at which you feel the breath enter and leave your body. This might be your nostrils, the top of your throat, or somewhere else.

Step 13: Reflect on experience

When you have completed the fourth phase, sit quietly for a few seconds and reflect on your experience of meditation.

Step 14: Return gently to your life

Return gently to your life in the outside world.

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[k6996]

this is just relaxing meditation not buddist mediation. When buddist meditate they dont think about anything, and only begainners meditate with eyes close, most buddist meditate with eyes slightly open, just look at the buddha statue. For some ppl they put their touge touching their top part of the inner mouth this helps to easier connect the ren and du mai. The main purpose of meditation is to clear your desires, so if you think about something it defeats the purpose.

[chrishasaclue]

Lol. I appreciate what this video is trying to obtain, but there are just way to many steps in this guided video. Meditation is suppose to be simple and non-thoughtful...... Here are just a few simple steps

#1: Find a comfortable place to sit were you will not be disturbed.

#2: Simply focus on the breath going in and out of your body.

Its that simple!

[chrishasaclue]

@farn1991 I agree, but the less thought and stress you put into it, the better your meditation session will become.

[farn1991]

@chrishasaclue

It's that simple, but not that easy.

Our mind always come up with some thought which will make us stand up and run.

Rather that just sit down and focus.

[alanjknig]

@chrishasaclue I agree. There is much in the breath alone.

[moscarellimichele]

@Mrwilwak omg shut up.

[AndrewSmith00000007]

@k6996 Of course, there are other meditation techniques that you are required to open you eyes. Such as Kathine(it's a pali word. I'm not sure if I'm spelling it correctly in English though). This technique is about focusing your mind on particular object or essence of that object(say color). For example, one technique is to meditate on candle light, another one is on color like white/gold etc. But I've never tried those techniques myself. So I can't comment on their effectiveness.

[AndrewSmith00000007]

@k6996 Regardless of whether you are paying attention to what you are seeing. you are still seeing. You can either observe your mind(yes with mind. It's possible. Ever wonder sometimes why you can't stop thinking what you don't want to think?) or observe your body process like breathing (No you don't need to say in you mind like breathing-in, breathing-out. Just observe.) or observe your belly movement from breathing process(Observe it's inflation and deflation).

[AndrewSmith00000007]

@k6996 There are so many variations to say one is correct and the other is not;it's almost impossible. In fact, Buddha himself acknowledged the existence of variations that lead to same goal - nirvana. Personally, I prefer Vipassana and I learned several different techniques of it in Myanmar. With Vipassana, opening your eyes no matter how slight they are, is huge distraction because you are suppose to observe your body with mind not eyes. Cont..

[Vaicurious]

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