2021-02-15 Mindfulness of Breathing (32) Simplicity with Breathing

Insight Meditation Center10min

Gil Fronsdal

00:02

It's one of the wonderful things that simplicity is one of the hallmarks, one of the characteristics of meditation practice. And sometimes that's not quite seen because teachers like me might give all kinds of instructions. And it might seem like there are a lot of instructions to keep in mind.

Gil Fronsdal

00:29

A teacher I knew when I was in India, Munindra-ji, was a teacher of many of the early Western practitioners of 'vipassanā.' He had many wonderful sayings. One of them was: "If it's not simple, it's not 'vipassanā.'" So, the idea is to keep it simple.

Gil Fronsdal

00:59

How is it that this practice is simple? It's simple by relying on the simplicity of how we can be aware of something – to be aware in the simplest possible way. For each of us, and for each of us at different times, what it means to be aware will be different. Part of the fascination of it all is to see how what we call attention or awareness shifts and changes depending on how settled, how focused we are and the kind of attention that's useful in any given moment.

Gil Fronsdal

01:41

But the guideline is to always keep it simple. That means not to be striving for it to be different. Not to be trying to engineer your meditation, to get it just right. It means to not be trying to avoid experience, get away from something, overthink the experience, or think our way into something and try to figure it out analytically. What's the right way? And it's also not trying to do too much at once. The idea is to be content with just being.

Gil Fronsdal

02:30

Now, just being is not the end-game of meditation. But it's a reference point for keeping it simple. Rather than a lot of doing, there's a lot of being. And in that being, in the simplicity – to allow whatever the native awareness is allows us to know that we're in the present moment – to be there, so it can surface, and show itself.

Gil Fronsdal

02:58

Because the mind drifts off, is caught up in thought, one of the things that many people find useful – it's not necessarily useful for everyone – is simplicity of breathing. Breathing is like the anchor line, tether, or support for staying in the present moment. Breathing is always in the present moment. It has a rhythm. It's not a fixed experience. It's a flowing, moving, changing experience.

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