What to do when I cannot feel the breath anymore, when it becomes too delicate?

The Teaching of Ajahn Suchart

What to do when I cannot feel the breath anymore, when it becomes too delicate?

Question:  What to do when I cannot feel the breath anymore, when it becomes too delicate?

Than Ajahn: Just watch the emptiness instead. Watch the mind, watch whether you’re thinking or not. If your mind starts to have any activities, you use mindfulness to stop it.

If there is no breath to watch, then concentrate on the emptiness. Just watch the mind and prevent the mind from doing any actions. If it doesn’t think, then just stay with the emptiness. Eventually, your mind will become calmer.

Don’t worry about the breath if you cannot watch or feel it anymore. The Buddha said that we just know what the breath is, whether the breath is short or long, coarse or subtle. Just know. Don’t try to manage the breath. Leave it alone. If there is no breath to watch, then just watch that there’s no breath. 

Watch your mind. By that time, you’ll be able to see the mind—see whether your mind is thinking or not thinking. When it is thinking, you can use mindfulness to stop it right away. Should there be images come up, you should not be concerned, but just don’t follow the images. Try to stay mindful. 

Then, anything that appears will disappear.

Layperson:  Sometimes my right hand moved and stayed in one certain position during meditation.

Than Ajahn:  That means you don’t have mindfulness. Your mind moved your hands but that’s not a problem. It’s a minor thing. You can ignore it.

Question:  So, do I ignore the position?

Than Ajahn:  Yeah, just concentrate on your meditation because if you pay attention to your hands, it will distract your mind. So, don’t worry about the position of your body. Once you start meditating, forget about the body. Even if the body opponent a little bit itchy here and there, just leave it alone. 

Don’t try to scratch it because the more you scratch it, the more you become involved with the body and not with your meditation.

Layperson:  Some meditators told me to move back.

Than Ajahn:  Not necessarily. If you want to move back, it’s okay, but if you keep doing it, you will be distracted. If you don’t want to be distracted, just forget about the body.

Sometimes, you might feel that you’re leaning to the left or to the right, leaning to the front or to the back. Don’t try to adjust it because when you do that, you’ll keep adjusting the position and be distracted from your meditation. Once you start meditating, just concentrate on your meditation object and disregard everything else. Even when there’s something inside the mind that comes to distract you, don’t follow it.

You might see something or hear something inside your mind. Don’t be distracted by those things. They are all distractions. They have no particular impact on your mind. 

They’re just phenomena that rise and cease.

Question: My wife asked what to do if during meditation, she saw light.

Than Ajahn:  The same thing. Just ignore it. Just concentrate on your breath or on your mantra, or whatever object you use to concentrate your mind on. Leave it alone. If you become interested in the phenomena, you will forget about your meditation, then you cannot move forward.

Your meditation is like your car. 

When you want to travel from here to your house, you have to stay in the car. If you see something beautiful outside and you get out of the car to see it when you are half way in your journey, then you are no longer moving towards your destination. You get stuck and are not going anywhere.

So, forget about everything else. Pay attention only to your meditation object.

Layperson:  Some meditators said that colour is a kasiṇa object.

Than Ajahn:  It isn’t what you want. What you want is calm.

What you want is samādhi. Kasiṇa is an object you use as a tool to get there. But you cannot use two tools at the same time—you cannot use kasiṇa and also use the breath at the same time; you have to choose one object. 

And when you start with one object of meditation, you don’t change it. If you keep changing the meditation object, you won’t go anywhere.

So, ignore everything else. Just stick to your meditation object, then your mind will eventually enter samādhi. When it enters samādhi, you use mindfulness to keep it there for as long as possible, you don’t have to do any investigation or contemplation yet. Right now, you want to establish mindfulness and samādhi to be strong first. So, you try to establish samādhi for as long as possible until you become proficient with it, until you can control your mind and stop your mind anytime, then when you come out of samādhi, you can start contemplating. Don’t contemplate when you’re in samādhi. When the mind is calm, it’s the time for the mind to rest and enjoy it. When you want to make the mind to do work, you have to wait for it to come out of samādhi first.

After the mind comes out of samādhi, then you can start directing the mind to investigate the nature of the body, for instance.

“Dhamma in English, Jan 12, 2019.”

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

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