Help finding “Breath Energy” as described by Thanissaro Bhikku

Upvote:-1

first u use for example the tactile sensation of the breath passing on the upper lip as the object of single-pointed fixation. with good instructions and surrounding circumstances it will take about 6months to reach perfect concentration. based on this all sensory appearances collapse and u remain in perfect single-pointed concentration on just the mind ie. spacious nonconceptual luminosity. ur sense organs only completely shutdown in 2nd jhana until then they are just dormant or suppressed in the sense of contributing nothing to impinge on ur perfect attention and one can remain without moving off ur object for two hours at a time easily. then the question comes, so can i return to my previous familiar breath meditation object or no or what. yes and no. no that coarse appearance conditioned by the sense organ and called the breath no longer is used, and yet yes a much subtler version of the movement of the breath is ascertained by the mental consciousness and used instead. this is the breath energy of the body closely associated with the mind called prana in vajrayana. this is the coarsest and most obvious ascertainment of it all thats required is perfect concentration beyond the desire realm the first instance of this being access concentration/shamata which is where the journey to 1st dhyana begins

Upvote:0

I've practiced breath meditation in a way similar to how Ven. Thanissaro teaches for decades.

What he and his teacher Ajahn Lee call breath energy, in the Buddha's sutta terminology, corresponds mostly with wind property (see MN 62 for breath meditation and 4 elements) https://lucid24.org/mn/mn062/index.html but also breath energy would overlap with the other elemental properties (fire, water, earth), just that it's the physical tactile sensations of the breath that you filter your experience through.

For example, in the beginning breath tactile sensations may feel most prominent as wind element in nostril area, force of chest and belly expanding.

The more you meditate, the more sensitive you become, and the more that your internal energies of your jhana battery are charged up and the forces become stronger, then you'll feel portions of currents and loops of energy running all over the entire body, felt as watery hydraulic movement, or heat, or electricity. At different stages, parts of your body may feel light (weight) or heavy, maybe like a buzzing beehive, or soft gooey magnetic force everywhere for example.

The sensations of your fingers for example may be felt as tingly electrical sensations. It may not feel like "breath" at first, but the more your jhana battery gets charged up, the more all of these elemental tactile sensations pervade everywhere in the body and connect together.

The important point is not that all of these kinds of tactile sensations have to feel like a gross (airy) breath, but that you simply use the "breath energy" as a way to anchor your perceptions, gross to subtle of how each cell of the body is perceived.

Upvote:1

Be patient with yourself, the energy is essentially how you feel the body from within. Initially when your body feels stiff, i.e also energy but blocked. Slowly, the energies you feel would be subtle. Try listening to the talks titled Breath, on dhammatalks.org, he explains it quite deeply there.

More post

Search Posts

Related post