The focus of my meditating has moved around quite abit over the last couple of years.

Initially the focus was on the breath, building up a level of sustained concentration by watching the breath; that then became less “watching” the breath as if it were some kind of outside phenomena i was spectating – and more about being in the breath, or being within “my” breathing.

That changed again: “my” breath dropped in favour of simply, merely, “being breathing”; the emphasis there placed on breathing being synonymous with awareness: breathing as an expression of my awareness.

I suppose if you want to sound clever about it, you could say: my awareness was being breathed.

My awareness was in receipt of breathing whether it liked it or not, or was present or it. The breathing carried on regardless.

But when awareness was within this breathing, coterminous with each breath, congruent with each breath – i could feel completely concentrated, like my concentration was being perfectly completed.

That level of concentration was exceptional; i couldn’t seem to produce it at will, whenever i wanted. I felt like i was achieving something special, or extraordinary if i managed to meditate like that. Occasionally i could. And those sits would flash by….20 minutes becoming like one, brief, continuous moment.

I’m using the past tense here cus i don’t  do breathing/concentration meditation as much as i did. I either forget to. Or don’t want to. Or feel that breathing is too “basic” to be bothering with.

But maybe i should start getting back to it, getting back to basics again.

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