For the past several weeks, we have been exploring Mindfulness of Breathing, one of the fundamental meditation practices. Most meditators are familiar with mindfulness of breathing in some form. It is available and rewarding to beginning meditators and also presents a rich path forward for experienced meditators toward liberation from suffering. It is accessible to every one, convenient, portable, and can be practiced on a crowded elevator or a deserted mountain top.
The basic instructions are to pay attention or to bring mindfulness to the “in" and “out" of breathing. It can be as simple as observing the physical sensations of the breath to contemplating the impermanence of each breath and its connection to the very process of our living.
As I have written before, mindfulness of breathing as a practice predates the Buddha. But the Buddha’s Discourse on Mindfulness of Breathing (the Anapanasati Sutta) with its 16 steps of instruction, lay outs out the entire path to freedom in four tetrads. We began our exploration with the first tetrad which instructs the meditator to discern the length of the breath as long or short, to train oneself to breath in (and out) sensitive to the entire body and to calm the entire body.
Thus, the first tetrad is about mindfulness of breathing while contemplating the body. This practice calms and tranquilizes the body.
The second tetrad instructs the meditator to breathe in sensitive to different feelings as they arise in the calm of the first tetrad - rapture and pleasure. These pleasant feelings are precursors to the deeper absorptive states of practice. Then the meditator is instructed to become sensitive to mental fabrications or in Bhikku Bodhi’s translation below “mental formations” which refers to our own volitional formations and to calm these volitional formations, to see our motivations at work and to calm them. This second tetrad addresses the second foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of feelings, our perception of positive, negative, or neutral feeling that accompany very experience we have. All the while contemplating the “in” breath and the “out” breath.
We now turn to the third tetrad which speaks to mindfulness of mind through our awareness of breathing. Meditators train themselves to “breathe in (and out) experiencing the mind", “breathe in (and out) gladdening the mind", concentrating, and liberating the mind. I have switched translations here and below having finally found Bhikku Bodhi’s translations which I first learned and prefer. This tetrad brings the contemplation of the objects of mind into direct awareness with the breath practice. Objects of mind are thoughts of past or future, plans, memories, moods, emotions, mind states of wanting or aversion - all the proliferations of mind pointed to in the Third Foundation of Mindfulness, Mindfulness of Mind. These are all progressively calmed and the mind begins to experience temporary freedom from these distractions. With this freedom arises gladness of the mind which leads to concentration and liberation of the mind in a deeper way.
“He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in experiencing the mind’; he trains thus: ‘I shall breathe out experiencing the mind.’ He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in gladdening the mind’; he trains thus: ‘I shall breathe out gladdening the mind.’ He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in concentrating the mind’; he trains thus: ‘I shall breathe out concentrating the mind.’ He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in liberating the mind’; he trains thus: ‘I shall breathe out liberating the mind.’ (Bhikku Bodhi Translation)
This is what one of my teachers Shaila Catherine wrote about the first three tetrads in her article for The Lion’s Roar, Aug. 2, 2022 https://www.lionsroar.com/all-you-need-is-breath/:
The practice of mindfulness of the breath gradually exposes all areas where attachments might fester—to the body or meditation object, mental functions, mind, or insight knowledge.
The first tetrad corresponds with mindfulness of the body and refines the meditation object—breath. Beginning with “breathing in long, one knows: ‘I breathe in long,’” the first four instructions emphasize skillful attention by knowing the long and short breath, experiencing the whole body (of breath), and tranquilizing the bodily formations. In this tetrad, you can learn a variety of ways to attend to the breath and discover how to know breath so that the perception produces calmness, clarity, and the conditions conducive to concentration and insight.
The second tetrad recognizes and strengthens the wholesome qualities that develop in conjunction with mindfulness, such as joy, pleasure, volition, and attention. As you focus on these qualities, you can come to understand how feeling functions, allow joy to refresh interest in the breath, recognize the powerful role volition plays in directing attention, and tranquilize mental activities.
The third tetrad spotlights the mind’s clarity, purity, and readiness for deep concentration. The experience of the mind at this stage will reveal a remarkable absence of hindrances. Having directly seen the profound purity of your well developed mind, you can confidently let go of excessive effort, attachment to spiritual gains, or the habitual tendency to manipulate the meditative process. The stability, gladness, and confidence that is evident at this stage of practice matures as the mind inclines toward deep concentration and temporary liberation from obstructive states.
At the same time, the mind is developing the wholesome qualities of mindfulness, investigation, energy, tranquillity, joy, concentration and equanimity, the seven qualities the Buddha called the Factors of Enlightenment. Each of these factors creates the conditions for the next to arise. They all support each other and they lead to enlightenment. You can see for yourself that paying attention to the breath immediately calls mindfulness into being, which supports investigation as we look at the length of the breath, and energy as our curiosity grows about the length of this breath. Tranquillity follows as the mind calms in this focused attention to the breath. And joy arises…