Как выполнять ежедневную практику 19 — Ежедневная практика (1999, Нью-Йорк), занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
So, here we go. Try to sit up straight. If you are in a chair, which is fine, put your feet on the floor.

You just want to park your body in the most comfortable way for you. Every human body is different. You are not going to be able to sit exactly the same way as the other person.

Just as long as your back is straight. Then start breathing through your nose. Try to watch your breath.

It's a contradiction to say watch your breath because you can't see it. And what it means is be aware of the sensation of the touch of the wind or the air coming into the nostrils and leaving the nostrils. Watch the front of your nostrils.

Be aware of the colder air entering there. It's like a crowd moving into turnstiles. And you feel the air striking the fronts of the nostrils.

And then you feel the warm air coming out. And that's what it means to do breathing meditation. So just watch that.

We'll do about 2-3 minutes.

[Speaker 2]
Try to be completely still.

[Speaker 1]
Now I'd like you to try to count your breaths. And this is how we do the breathing meditation. The out breath counts as the first half of the breath.

And then the in breath counts as the second half of the breath. And it's sort of a game of checkers with your own mind. And you're trying to see if you can get up to counting 10 breaths without losing count.

And if you lose count, it's like chutes and ladders, you've got to go back to the beginning. If you lose count, you've got to go back to 1. If you're really, really honest, you won't get past 2 or 3, I think.

The trick here is if you're not honest with yourself, you won't get better at meditation. You won't improve. So be very strict with yourself.

If you lose count, if you think, if your mind goes to something else and you lose your object of your meditation, then you must come back to 1. You must start over again. When you do this in real life, don't drive yourself crazy.

Stop after 5 minutes and go on to the rest of your meditation. You'll never get to 10. Some people bragged to me they got to 10 and went on to 16 actually before they noticed that they were doing that.

Which just means they lost it, you see? So, try to do 10 breaths. Out-breath is the first half, in-breath is the second half.

Be very, very strict with yourself. Be relentless with yourself. People have asked me, do I have to count it if the sarge slams the door?

That's not really fair. I distinguish between your mind wandering and an external event like a door slamming. If you hear the door and come straight back and don't lose count, you can keep going.

Here we go. Don't try to control the breath. Don't try to change it in any way.

Just counting. If you think of something else in a major way, you have to start over again.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, relax.