In the beginning of a meditation Practice
it will all seem so overwhelming.
Know that your ‘Practice’… is a Life Practice.
You’ll have your whole life to unpack it.
It’s best to just surrender to it, jump in …
And have no attachments to how it will unfold.
Just be consistent, and increase your Practice
as much as you can find time.
But,
At the same time, for each meditation, each lesson…
Set a strong intention for what to accomplish.
Again,
Before one is totally ‘Enlightened’…
One does not experientially know what to expect
and how that feels.
But,
You learn more with each sit.
~
As far as the breath…
I recall being confused… and when you over think it,
Wow, it makes it hard to just breath naturally.
Keep reminding yourself…
The body breaths…
I am just pure Awareness.
This statement will make more & more sense as you go along.
~
As far as the ‘breath’ goes…
It’s simply “an object of meditation”.
The goal being,
to obtain a ‘one pointed mode of focused concentration’.
Something profound happens after one achieves this.
As the Practice matures,
there will come a point in which the strong effort
to keep one awareness strictly on the breath…
Transcends to the ‘effortless’ aspects of the Practice.
One naturally surrenders and lets go of the effort
and even the object of meditation as a form, such as the breath.
This begins the next phase of the Practice…
the ‘formless’ object of meditation…
One just abides in the sensations of surrendering, floating…
As if a cosmic raft is taking “you” away.
This is where one experientially feels a sort of ‘disembodiment’
from the false little ‘self’ we mistake to be our True Self.
But…
That’s where all this incessant breathing will take you 😉
For now,
The main point of following your breath
is to become so focused that all peripheral distractions
won’t take your awareness off your intended object of meditation.
Find ways, any ways, to be intrigued and interested in the breath…
Any way that naturally arises to you.
There is no right or wrong way.
As your Practice deepens,
you’ll learn about Prana, Qi, Chi, the ‘life force’
that flows along with the breath.
This is no more mystical than how the Chinese has mapped out
the ‘energetic paths’ for acupuncture.
You’ll learn to deepen your awareness on the breath so acutely,
that you’ll begin to sense this energetic flow.
You’ll be able to bring your awareness to focus on this
as it flows through and energies your chakras…
Again…
This is not magic or mystical…
It’s just training your awareness to be so focused
that you become aware of this ‘subtle energy’.
