Right Mindfulness: Memory & Ardency on the Buddhist Path by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Author:Thanissaro Bhikkhu [Bhikkhu, Thanissaro]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Buddhism, Mindfulness, Meditation, Dhamma, Dharma, Theravada, Pali Canon, Buddha
Publisher: Metta Forest Monastery
Published: 2012-08-09T07:00:00+00:00

According to MN 28, three of these properties—water, fire, and wind—have the potential to become “provoked” (kuppa). In other words, when stimulated, they can become quite volatile. So when you explore the ways in which the in-and-out breath fabricates the inner sense of the body, these are the three properties most directly responsive to influences from the breath. With regard to the water property, this could mean breathing in such a way as to raise or lower the blood pressure, for example, or to change the flow of the blood through different parts of the body: away from an area feeling excess pressure (as when you have a headache) or toward an area that has been injured and needs the extra nourishment that a healthy blood flow would provide. With regard to the fire property, this could mean breathing in such a way as to feel warmer when the weather is cold, or cooler when it’s hot. With regard to the wind property, this could mean breathing in ways that would regulate the flow of the energy already coursing through the different parts of the body.

The act of regulating the energy flow in the body connects directly with the second reason mentioned above for assuming that step 3 would involve adjusting the in-and-out breath. The standard similes for the first three jhānas (MN 119, cited above in Chapter One) state that you allow the sense of pleasure and/or rapture arising from those states of concentration to permeate throughout the body. This step is greatly facilitated if you know how to adjust the in-and-out breath so that the energy flow in the body allows for rapture and pleasure to spread in this way.

For these reasons, it seems best to interpret step 3 as including not only the ability to be sensitive to the entire body throughout the in-and-out breath—to prepare you for the full-body awareness developed in jhāna—but also the ability to consciously adjust the breath in a way that allows you to do two things: to spread pleasure and rapture throughout the body in the first three jhānas, and to develop a more general sensitivity to how the breath is the primary bodily fabrication in its effect on the other properties of the body. Of course, this adjustment has to be developed as a skill. If you apply too much pressure or are too heavy-handed in your efforts to adjust the properties of the body, it will give rise to the “fevers” mentioned in SN 47:10. That will require you to step back from the breath and turn the mind to another theme for a while until you feel calmed enough to return to the breath.

The same point applies to step 4. If you apply too much force to calm the breath, it will play havoc with the properties of the body. The body will be starved of breath energy, and again a “bodily fever” will result. At the same time, it’s important to remember—in line with MN 118’s explanation

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