There is a text called 'Mindfulness of Breathing'
in which the Buddha proposes 16 exercises on mindful breathing.
It's very practical.
And everyone can do it. Not complicated.
You can already notice the effect of the practice after one or two hours.
The first exercise is so simple.
To be aware of your in-breath and out-breath.
This is what we practiced this morning.
Breathing in, I know this is an in-breath.
To identify the in-breath as in-breath,
and to identify the out-breath as an out-breath.
Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. So simple.
And yet the effect can be great.
Aware of...
Aware of in-breath and out-breath.
[1. aware of I + O]
As you breathe in, you pay attention to your in-breath only.
Your in-breath becomes the only object of your mind.
And if you are truly focused, mindful of your in-breath,
you release everything else.
You release the past, you release the future, your projects, your fear,
your anger, because the mind has only one object at a time.
And the object of the mind now is the in-breath.
Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
So you focus your mind on your in-breath and you release everything else
and you become free.
There is regret concerning the past, sorrow concerning the past.
There is fear and uncertainty concerning the future.
All of that you release in just 1 or 2 seconds because you are focusing
all your mind into your in-breath.
So breathing in mindfully sets you free. You have freedom.
If you are to make a decision, it's better you have enough freedom to make it.
You are not under the influence of anger or fear,
and your decision is much better than if you are not free.
So just breathing in makes you free.
And it is pleasant also, it's pleasant to breathe in.
So the exercise is so simple but the effect can be great.
The second exercise is to follow your in-breath all the way through
and to follow your out-breath all the way through.
And you may enjoy these two exercises at any time and anywhere.
Breathing in, I follow my in-breath from the beginning to the end.
Suppose this marker represents my in-breath.
It begins here and this finger is my mind.
Breathing in, I follow my in-breath all the way through.
There is no interruption at all, not a millisecond of interruption.
So during the time you breathe in mindfully, you cultivate concentration.
You are not only mindful of your in-breath but you concentrate on your in-breath.
The energy of mindfulness carries within herself the energy of concentration.
And it is also pleasant,
because to be mindful and to concentrate on your in-breath can be very pleasant.
You don't have to suffer.
In fact you can feel wonderful, just breathing in,
especially when the air is fresh and if the nose is free.
So the second exercise is...
[2. follow I + O]
to follow your in-breath and your out-breath all the way through.
We know we can do these two exercises
anytime we like.
The third exercise is to be aware of your body.
[3. aware of body]
Breathing in, I'm aware of my body. You bring your mind home to your body.
And your mind becomes an embodied mind.
That will help you to be established in the here and the now,
you are fully present, you are fully alive.
And you can live that moment of your daily life more deeply
if body and mind are together.
The oneness of body and mind is what you realize with the third exercise.
When you spend 2 hours with your computer,
you forget entirely that you have a body.
You are not truly alive in that moment.
You are truly alive only when the mind is with the body.
You are fully in the here and the now and you touch the wonders of life
in you and around you.
Many of our brothers and sisters in Plum Village
program a bell of mindfulness in their computer.
And every fifteen minutes, they hear the bell, they stop working,
they go back and enjoy their in-breath and out-breath,
smile and enjoy their body.
And release the tension in their body.
That is what the Buddha recommended 2600 years ago.
There's the fourth exercise.
Breathing in, I calm my body, I release the tension...
in my body.
[4. calm body]
When you come back to your body,
you may notice that there is a lot of tension in your body.
Then you may like to do something to help your body to have more peace,
to suffer less, and with your out-breath you allow the tension to be released.
That's the first four exercises of mindful breathing
recommended by the Buddha
so that we can take good care of our body.
And with the fifth exercise we go to the realm of the feelings.
The fifth exercise is to generate a feeling of joy. Generating joy.
[5. Generating Joy]
A good practitioner knows how to generate a feeling of joy,
because she knows that mindfulness allows her to recognize
all the conditions of happiness that are already available.
We can remind ourselves and we can remind our beloved ones that we are very lucky.
We can be happy right here and right now,
we don't have to run into the future to look for happiness.
There is a teaching given by the Buddha.
That is the teaching of "living happily in the present moment."
Life is available only in the present moment.
And if you go back to the present moment
you will notice that there are so many conditions of happiness
already available.
That is why joy and happiness can be born right away.
The expression living happily in the present moment
was found in a sutra...
five times.
The Buddha was teaching Anathapindika,
a businessman, in the city of Sravasti.
That day Anathapindika, the businessman,
came with many hundreds of businessmen to visit the Buddha.
And the Buddha gave them that teaching.
"Gentlemen", he said, "you can be happy right here and right now.
You don't have to run into the future,
you don't have to look for success in the future in order to be happy."
I think the Buddha knew very well that businessmen,
they think a little bit too much about the future and their successes.
And that is why the expression living deeply,
"living happily in the present moment" was used by the Buddha five times
in the same sutra, the same scripture.
Drstādharmasukhavihara.
[drstādharmasukhavihara]
"Vihara" means to dwell or to live, "sukha" means happily,
and "drstā-dharma" is the present moment.
(Chinese: 現法樂住)
So a good practitioner does not look for happiness in the future.
He knows how to go home to the present moment
and recognize all the conditions for happiness that are available
and make joy and happiness available right away.
And she does that for herself and she does that for the other person.
Creating happiness is an art. The art of happiness.
So the fifth exercise is to generate joy and the sixth is to generate happiness.
[6. Generating Happiness]
The seventh is...
to be aware of a painful feeling or emotion.
Breathing in, I know there is a painful feeling, a painful emotion
that is coming up in me.
[7. Aware of Pain]
The practitioner does not try to fight the pain, to cover up the pain inside
or to try to run away from the pain.
In fact, because she is a practitioner
she knows how to generate the energy of mindfulness.
With that energy she recognizes the pain and she embraces the pain tenderly.
'Hello my little pain. I know you are there. I will take good care of you.'
Whether that is anger or fear or jealousy or despair.
We have to be there for our pain.
There is no fighting.
There is no violence done to our suffering.
Yesterday we spoke about a mother holding the crying baby.
Our pain, our suffering is our baby
and the energy of mindfulness generated by our practice is the loving mother.
And the mother has to recognize that the baby suffers.
She takes the baby up and holds the baby tenderly into her arms.
That is exactly what a good practitioner will do
when a painful feeling arises.
You have to be there for your painful feeling or emotion.
You continue to breathe and to walk in such a way,
that the energy of mindfulness continues to be produced.
With that energy of mindfulness you recognize the pain
and you embrace the pain tenderly.
In Buddhism we speak of consciousness in terms of "store" and "mind."
There are at least two layers of consciousness.
The lower layer is called "store consciousness."
Our fear, our anger, our despair are there in the bottom of our consciousness
in the form of seeds.
There is a seed of anger here
and if the seed of anger accepts to sleep quietly down there,
we are okay.
We can laugh, we can have a good time.
But if someone comes and says something or does something
and touches off that seed of anger, it will come up as a source of energy.
Down here it is called a seed.
[seed]
(Chinese: 種子)
Bija.
[bija]
And when it comes up here on the level of "mind consciousness,"
it will become a kind of energy called mental formation.
[mental formation]
And this is the mental formation called anger.
[M.F.]
So when the practitioner notices when anger is coming up,
she, right away, breathes
and invites the seed of mindfulness to come up as energy.
Mindfulness is another seed that is here.
If we are a good practitioner, the seed of mindfulness in us has grown
to become a very important seed.
It needs a touch lightly,
then there will be a lot of that energy coming up for us to use.
If we are not a practitioner, the seed of mindfulness is there but very tiny.
If you practice mindful breathing, mindful walking everyday,
the seed continues to grow.
Whenever you need that energy, you just touch it,
and you have a powerful source of energy
to help you to deal with whatever is happening up there.
So the practitioner begins to breathe or to walk mindfully.
The second mental formation is manifested on this level.
Another mental formation... And this one is mindfulness.
So it is the energy of mindfulness that will take care of the energy of anger.
There is no fighting.
Mindfulness does at least two things. First of all to recognize,
a simple recognition of the pain.
And that is the seventh exercise. Breathing in, I know anger is in me.
Or despair is in me or jealousy is in me.
Recognize simply, not fighting.
The second thing mindfulness will do is to embrace.
And that is seen in the eighth exercise is to calm down the pain
[Calm Pain]
like a mother holding the baby.
The mother does not know what is wrong with the baby.
But the fact that she's holding the baby gently
can help the baby suffer less right away.
The same thing is true with the practitioner.
She does not know what is the cause of that kind of anger or fear.
But the fact that she is recognizing and holding that energy of fear and anger
can help her suffer less right away, after one or two minutes.
So this is...
the art of suffering.
This is the art of happiness.
How to generate a feeling of joy and happiness.
How to take care of a painful feeling and emotion.
How to calm it down, how to get a relief.
And with the exercises that follow you can go further
and you can transform pain, sorrow, fear into something more positive,
like making good use of the mud in order to grow lotus flowers.
So a good practitioner is not afraid of pain.
She does not try to run away from the pain.
In fact, she tries to be with the pain.
She knows how to handle a feeling of pain,
a strong emotion.
And she knows how to make good use of that mud
in order to create understanding and compassion
which are factors of true happiness.