Awareness of body / body-scanning & the Anapanasati sutta

Invincible_summer

I've been reading With Each and Every Breath by Thanissaro Bhikkhu and trying to follow his style of meditation. On pp 29-32 he tells us that after we feel comfortable following the breath, we are to expand our attention to other parts of the body, imagining the breath energy flowing to those areas. Eventually, we are to imagine the breath energy coursing throughout the whole body.

I am of the understanding that the Goenka meditation style involves "scanning" from the crown of the head downwards through the body after focus on the breath is established.

So are these two techniques pretty much the same thing? Does it matter which one I do, or for example, does the Goenka type of scanning only work within his system?

I am assuming that these techniques are based on the portion of the Anapanasati sutta that states:

"[1] Breathing in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long.' [2] Or breathing in short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he discerns, 'I am breathing out short.' [3] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.'[2] He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.'

This leads me to my second question/point of confusion - in Thanissaro Bhikkhu's book, it doesn't really clearly state how to deal with the other frames of reference found in the Anapanasati sutta.
For instance, in the section on "Wandering Thoughts" (pp 43-46), he says we can either: return to the breath; think about the drawbacks of following the thoughts; ignore the thoughts; relax; or suppress the thought. There are elaborations on all these listed actions, but the focus seems to be more on maintaining concentration on the breath rather than being "focused on the [feelings/mind/mental qualities] in and of [themselves]."

Am I just misunderstanding Thanissaro Bhikkhu's instructions? Following his technique, how does one also stay in line with the Anapanasati sutta? Or are the types of meditation outlined in these two texts completely different and cannot be compared?


Thanks in advance!

taiyaki

You can do both. In the case of noting concepts are used to orientate the mind and keep focus. This is done super fast, etc.

There is also a time when the breath energy can expand and that is more somatic. When we tend to be focused as the body there are less and less thoughts.

Let your meditation flow and be more organic, but also be mindful not to stray into spacing out.

Its a balancing act of concentration and relaxation. Tight and loose.

Thoughts can help in practice and as we know negative thoughts do not help. In either case develop the anchor or calm abiding. Then the instructions on breath and how to expand that calm become very obvious existentially.

GL.

fivebells

Hi, @Invincible_summer. Total Thanissaro fanboy, so take this with a grain of salt. Discovering his Wings To Awakening last August really super-charged my practice.

I went on a Goenka 10-day last Fall, but had to leave after five days due to health reasons. I've read his disciple's book which purports to cover the whole 10-day sequence, though.

The anapanasati sutta is vague enough that both practices could be said to fall under its description. They differ in signficant ways, and I would say that the Goenka practice fits more under the Satipatthana sutta than anapanasati, and best fits paragraph [1] in the "Four Frames of Reference" section of anapansati.

The two suttas are very closely related, though. Thanissaro details the relationship between them in chapter 6 of Right Mindfulness, which I highly recommend, though it is a bit heavy and tedious in places (skip chapter 4, though — useless inside-baseball drama.) Neither Goenka nor the Thanissaro method deserves priority; they are both useful and can both be justified from vague sutta passages which seem to fit. I don't think the Pali canon explicitly mentions either breath-energy manipulation or body scanning, and you should do whatever works for you. I have found Thanissaro's emphasis on pleasure to be extremely helpful in mitigating hostility/anxiety and training the mind to concentration on the breath, though. His instruction to suffuse the whole body with pleasure comes from the simile in anapansati about "a skilled bathman."

The gist of the answer to your second question is that you want to start with establishing firm concentration on the breath, but you can move back and forth between different frames of reference as circumstances suggest. E.g., for his prescriptions of wandering thoughts, simply ignoring the thoughts or returning to the breath is hewing to the physical frame of reference; relaxing the physical tension associated with the thoughts is attending to the physical and and mental at the same time, but disconnecting them from each other ("in and of themselves" means "without reference to anything else"); thinking about the drawbacks of the thinking is attending to dharma (one I find very helpful here, taken from the suttas, is "If I could survive even the next ten breaths to put the Buddha's teachings into practice, that would be of enormous benefit"); suppressing the thoughts is attending to mental phenomena. One way to attend to feeling would be to compare the feelings associated with the thought with the sense of pleasure and comfort created by the breath-energy manipulation. For me, the thought always fares poorly in this comparison.

From Right Mindfulness, p. 76

In these ways, the four explanations offer some important insights into
understanding the sixteen steps. In particular, they show that the sixteen steps
don’t necessarily follow a straight linear sequence. Instead, each tetrad can serve
as an object of focus simultaneously with any of the other tetrads. As you
practice breath meditation, you can remain focused on the second, third, or
fourth tetrad while continuing to remain focused on the breath.

For example, there are times when you find it most helpful to focus on how
the breath is giving rise to feelings of rapture and pleasure; to the way these
feelings (as mental fabrications, along with the perceptions you’re employing
around the breath) are influencing the mind; and to how you can calm that
influence. This would be an example of focusing on the second tetrad while
simultaneously remaining focused on the first. At other times, you’ll find it more
useful to see which ways the mind is in or out of balance—too sluggish, for
instance, or too scattered—and then use the breath to bring it more into balance.
This would be an example of focusing on the third tetrad while still focused on
the first. And at other times, you will want to observe how you can develop the
dispassion that will enable you to let go of any external preoccupations that
threaten to pull you away from the breath. This would turn attention to the
fourth tetrad while staying focused on the first.

The possibility of combining tetrads in this way is confirmed by noting how
the Buddha’s four explanations can be mapped against the standard formula for
the first establishing of mindfulness: “One remains focused on the body in & of
itself—ardent, alert, & mindful—subduing greed & distress with reference to the
world.” The reference to the breath as a “body among bodies” in the first
explanation corresponds to the phrase “body in & of itself” in the formula. The
reference to careful attention in the second explanation relates to the practice of
remaining focused described in the formula. The reference to mindfulness and
alertness in the third explanation is an obvious reference to two of the qualities
that, according to the formula, are brought to the act of remaining focused on
the body in and of itself: being alert and mindful. And the reference to
abandoning greed and distress in the fourth explanation is a direct reference to
the act of subduing greed and distress with reference to the world, which also is
an aspect of the third mental quality brought to the act of remaining focused on
the body in and of itself: ardency.

In other words, the Buddha is showing how the activity of the first establishing
of mindfulness—and this establishing, like all the establishings, is basically an
activity—contains aspects of all four establishings, any of which can be taken as a
frame of reference. The practical implication here, as we have noted, is that the
shift in focus from one frame of reference to another doesn’t require you to switch
to a new meditation practice. It simply turns attention to another aspect of what
you’re already doing. This is like mastering a new piece on the piano. Once you’ve
got the notes down and it’s time to listen to how your playing sounds, you don’t
stop playing to listen more clearly. You keep on playing, again and again, while
you listen to the nuances of your touch and phrasing, and to the overall thoughts
and emotions you’re conveying. This is what allows you both to develop more
skill and to discover new things in the music.

Each and Every Breath has references to further reading/dharma talks at the end of each chapter which cover technical details he left out because they would confuse the book's thrust as a practical meditation guide. Don't hesitate to ask any further questions here, though. I am happy to help. I am finding the short talks and essays to be very useful preliminaries to my meditation sessions, though.

sova

from feet to crown

or crown to feet

both are good.

breathe in through any spots of tension (breathing in through your neck/shoulders for example)


relax the mind and body
so you can investigate the body and mind

Invincible_summer

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I think when I read too much about meditation, I start to second guess the technique I'm using... "is this right?" and so on. I'm also pretty new to this as I'm coming from a zazen background.

@fivebells:

Neither Goenka nor the Thanissaro method deserves priority; they are both useful and can both be justified from vague sutta passages which seem to fit.

could you clarify this for me? Goenka's nor Thanissaro's method deserves priority over what exactly? The Anapanasati sutta?

I agree, I should just focus on what works best. But I'm new to this style of meditation and didn't realize there are so many variations, and am trying to figure out what's working.

It's interesting that when I try Thanissaro's method, I tend to be much more focused than if I do something more Mahasi or Bhante G's method. It's almost like when I am "supposed to" note (like in the Mahasi method), my mind will come up with things to note. When I focus on being aware of the body, there's much less of that chatter.

fivebells

Invincible_summer said:

Goenka's nor Thanissaro's method deserves priority over what exactly? The Anapanasati sutta?

Neither deserves to be held up as the exemplary way to practice the instructions in the anapanasati sutta.

Invincible_summer said:

It's interesting that when I try Thanissaro's method, I tend to be much more focused than if I do something more Mahasi or Bhante G's method.

In my case, I believe this happens because the method emphasizes attention to pleasurable sensations. This creates a positive feedback loop, because the pleasure is positive reinforcement for the act of placing attention there.

pegembara

Invincible_summer said:

"Breathing in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long.' Or breathing in short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he discerns, 'I am breathing out short.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming bodily fabrication.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.' And as he remains thus heedful, ardent, & resolute, any memories & resolves related to the household life are abandoned, and with their abandoning his mind gathers & settles inwardly, grows unified & centered. This is how a monk develops mindfulness immersed in the body.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.119.than.html

Some would say that this body is the body of breath and not the actual body.

"In-&-out breaths are bodily; these are things tied up with the body. That's why in-&-out breaths are bodily fabrications. Having first directed one's thoughts and made an evaluation, one then breaks out into speech. That's why directed thought & evaluation are verbal fabrications. Perceptions & feelings are mental; these are things tied up with the mind. That's why perceptions & feelings are mental fabrications."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.044.than.html

pegembara

This leads me to my second question/point of confusion - in Thanissaro Bhikkhu's book, it doesn't really clearly state how to deal with the other frames of reference found in the Anapanasati sutta.
For instance, in the section on "Wandering Thoughts" (pp 43-46), he says we can either: return to the breath; think about the drawbacks of following the thoughts; ignore the thoughts; relax; or suppress the thought. There are elaborations on all these listed actions, but the focus seems to be more on maintaining concentration on the breath rather than being "focused on the [feelings/mind/mental qualities] in and of [themselves]."

Referring to MN44, the focus is on the breath. Thoughts disappear, then the breath and finally feeling and perception.

"But when a monk is attaining the cessation of perception & feeling, which things cease first: bodily fabrications, verbal fabrications, or mental fabrications?"

"When a monk is attaining the cessation of perception & feeling, friend Visakha, verbal fabrications cease first, then bodily fabrications, then mental fabrications."[1]

karmablues

@invincible_summer

Regarding scanning of the body, I've just come across the following text which you may find useful from Wings to Awakening by Thanissaro Bhikku:

"In a "scanning" or "body sweep" practice, mindfulness means remembering to stick with the process of scanning the body, while alertness would mean seeing the subtle sensations of the body being scanned. Ardency would mean sticking with the scanning process and trying to be ever more sensitive to the subtlest sensations. As in the previous case, these activities are related to factors of jhāna, and the process, if conducted in line with the texts, should culminate in a state of full-bodied singleness, at which time the motion of the scanning can be brought to stillness, and the mind can enter deeper concentration."