The ABC’s of the Breath by AJAHN LEE.

The ABC’s of the Breath
by AJAHN LEE.

“There are three important parts to meditating: thinking, awareness, and the breath. All three of these parts have to be kept right together at all times. Don’t let any one of them come loose from the others.

‘Thinking’ refers to thinking ‘buddho’ together with the breath. ‘Awareness’ means knowing the breath as it goes in and out. Only when thinking and awareness are kept fastened constantly with the breath can you say that you’re meditating.

... When we start learning to write, we have to use chalk because it’s big, easy to write with and easy to erase. This is like thinking ‘buddho.’ Once we advance in our studies, we start using a pencil because its mark is clear and longer-lasting. For example, the sentence, ‘Where’s Dad?’ is a piece of knowledge. If we can only read the separate letters, ‘W’ or ‘D’, it doesn’t really count as knowledge. So we then throw away our chalk. In other words, we don’t have to repeat ‘buddho.’ We use our powers of evaluation (vic›ra) to see, as we’re breathing: Is the inbreath good? Is the out-breath good? What kind of breathing is comfortable? What kind of breathing isn’t?

Then we correct and adjust the breath. Pick out whichever way of breathing seems good and then observe it to see if it gives comfort to the body. If it does, keep that sense of comfort steady and put it to use. When it’s really good, benefits will arise, perfecting our knowledge. Once we’ve obtained knowledge, we can erase the pencil marks in our notebooks because we’ve seen the benefits that come from what we’ve done. When we go back home, we can take our knowledge with us and make it our homework. We can do it on our own at home; and when we stay at the monastery, we can keep at it constantly.

So the breath is like a piece of paper, the mind is like a person, knowledge is like a note: Even just this much can serve as our standard. If we’re intent on just these three things—thinking, awareness, and the breath—we’ll give rise to knowledge within ourselves that has no fixed limits and can’t possibly be told to anyone else.”

Source: Inner Strength. Chapter: The ABC’s of the Breath
by AJAHN LEE.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/strength.html#abc