Photo by Andreas Rasmussen on Unsplash
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Well. This week was one of the techniques you hear about first when you decide to try meditation. The sensation of the breath. Not following the passage of the breath in and out (which I see is a later weeks task), or counting the breaths (another beginner technique). This one is simply to feel the breath as it comes in and out of your nose - the way the air feels on your nose. Or the way your stomach rises and falls, internally and externally - the feeling of that.
I've always thought (and still do) that methods of meditation relying on breathing awareness can be very difficult for anyone with any respiratory issues, asthma, or any panic attack issues. Concentrating on something that is being a bit difficult or strained may make you feel worse. So I'm not a massive fan of these kinds of methods. I often find that focussing on my breath for any reason - to breathe more deeply or make the exhales longer than the inhales to relax the parasympathetic nervous system, can sometimes serve only to make me more self-conscious or aware that I'm finding regular breathing difficult in that moment - a legacy of previous panic attacks, and part of my Generalised Anxiety Disorder.
The main thing I note about doing it this time, is that the 3 minutes felt incredibly long. My mind veered off all over the place, and I kept bringing my attention back to the breath, as usual, but almost without fail, I would think - 'maybe I've missed the bell at the end, did I turn the sound up?' (using the book's app to time the sessions). When I checked, it would be about 2 mins 13 seconds or 2 minutes 17 seconds, every time!
I didn't find this relaxing, or freeing or anything other than me stopping what I was doing and doing this instead for 3 minutes. I had no real feeling about it at all.
Richard Dixey explains what this sort of meditation is supposed to do for us:
The classic vehicle for Vitaka and Vicara is breath meditation. This is sometimes called mindfulness meditation. It is a shamata meditation in which we bring our attention to a continuously moving object. Instead of the flickering of a candle or the fading of a bell, we attend to the sensation of the breath moving in and out. Vitaka brings attention to the sensation, normally the very slight sensation of the breath entering or leaving the nostrils or the rising and falling of the belly or chest. The Vicara element is to stay with it and not lose interest. If we stay with the sensation, the object changes as we exhaust any preconception of what we are doing. (p.37)
It probably doesn't help that I have always found this method difficult because I don't want to concentrate on my breathing - it feeds my anxiety. But I did persevere, and that's the point, I think. To try these different methods and see what resonates, what doesn't, all the while coming closer to an understanding of the Vitaka and Vicara he refers to so often. The immediate sensation of something, and the staying with it. He says later in the same chapter:
Remember always the Vicara trick. Whenever anything comes to disturb you, engage with it for a moment, and then bring your attention back to your original object. You can become very relaxed. It's not a matter of being resistant. Once we understand Vicara, we can flow. [...] Thoughts are always going to sneak up on us; we will always find ourselves attending to them. [...] I think it is a little better simply to relax, drop the thought, and then return to your meditation. Otherwise there is a danger that you'll end up fighting with your thoughts to become what's called "a good meditator", which is itself a thought! [...] It's like a dance. We are learning how to dance, very gradually, and after a while, the annoying thoughts disappear. They just do. (pp.44-45)
Not yet, in my case. But I have tried it snd see it's value as an exercise. Possibly if I did it week after week I would see the lessening of distracting thoughts.
Let's see what next week's practice holds.
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