With Each and Every Breath
A Guide to Meditation
by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Introduction

MEDITATION: WHAT & WHY

Meditation is training for the mind, to help it develop the strengths and skills it needs to solve its problems. Just as there are many different remedies for the various illnesses of the body, there are many different types of meditation for the various problems of the mind.

The meditation technique taught in this book is a skill aimed at solving the mind’s most basic problem: the stress and suffering it brings on itself through its own thoughts and actions. Even though the mind wants happiness, it still manages to weigh itself down with mental pain. In fact, that pain comes from the mind’s misguided efforts to find happiness. Meditation helps to uncover the reasons for why the mind does this and, in uncovering them, helps you to cure them. In curing them, it opens you to the possibility of genuine happiness, a happiness you can rely on, a happiness that will never change or let you down.

That’s the good news of meditation: Genuine happiness is possible, and you can reach it through your own efforts. You don’t have to content yourself only with pleasures that will eventually leave you. You don’t have to resign yourself to the idea that temporary happiness is the best life has to offer. And you don’t have to pin your hopes for happiness on any person or power outside yourself. You can train the mind to access a totally reliable happiness, a happiness that causes no harm to you or to anyone else.

Not only is the goal of meditation good; the means for attaining that goal are good as well. They’re activities and mental qualities you can be proud to develop: things like honesty, integrity, compassion, mindfulness, and discernment. Because true happiness comes from within, it doesn’t require that you take anything from anyone else. Your true happiness doesn’t conflict with the true happiness of anyone else in the world. And when you find true happiness inside, you have more to share with others.

This is why the practice of meditation is an act of kindness for others as well as for yourself. When you solve the problem of stress and suffering, you, of course, are the person who will most directly benefit. But you aren’t the only one. This is because when you create stress and suffering for yourself, you weaken yourself. You place burdens not only on yourself but also on the people around you: both by having to depend on them for help and support, and also by damaging them with the foolish things you might do or say out of weakness and fear. At the same time, you’re hampered from helping them with their problems, for your hands are filled with your own. But if your mind can learn how to stop causing itself stress and suffering, you’re less of a burden on others and you’re in a better position to give them a helping hand.

So the practice of meditation teaches you to respect the things within you that are worthy of respect: your desire for a genuine happiness, totally reliable and totally harmless; and your ability to find that happiness through your own efforts.

To bring a total end to the mind’s self-inflicted stress and suffering requires a great deal of dedication, training, and skill. But the meditation technique taught in this book doesn’t give its benefits only to people who are ready to follow it all the way to the total cure of awakening. Even if you simply want help in managing pain or finding a little more peace and stability in your life, meditation has plenty to offer you. It can also strengthen the mind to deal with many of the problems of day-to-day life, because it develops qualities like mindfulness, alertness, concentration, and discernment that are useful in all activities, at home, at work, or wherever you are. These qualities are also helpful in dealing with some of the larger, more difficult issues of life. Addiction, trauma, loss, disappointment, illness, aging, and even death are a lot easier to handle when the mind has developed the skills fostered by meditation.

So even if you don’t make it all the way to total freedom from stress and suffering, meditation can help you to handle your sufferings more skillfully—in other words, with less harm to yourself and the people around you. This, in itself, is a worthwhile use of your time. If you then decide to pursue the meditation further, to see if it really can lead to total freedom, so much the better.

WHAT’S IN THIS BOOK

The meditation technique described here is drawn from two sources. The first source is the Buddha’s set of instructions on how to use the breath in training the mind. These instructions are found in the Pali Canon, the oldest extant record of the Buddha’s teachings. As the Canon states, the Buddha found the breath to be a restful meditation topic—both for body and mind—as well as an ideal topic for developing mindfulness, concentration, and discernment. In fact, it was the topic he himself used on the path to his awakening. That’s why he recommended it to more people and taught it in more detail than any other topic of meditation.

The second source is a method of breath meditation developed in the last century by Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo, a master of a branch of Buddhism known in Thailand as the Wilderness Tradition. Ajaan Lee’s method builds on the Buddha’s instructions, explaining in detail many of the points that the Buddha left in a condensed form. I trained in this technique for ten years under Ajaan Fuang Jotiko, one of Ajaan Lee’s students, so some of the insights here come from my training with Ajaan Fuang as well.

I’ve followed these sources in focusing on the breath as the main topic of meditation because it’s the safest of all meditation topics. The technique described here brings the body and mind to a balanced state of well-being. This in turn allows the mind to gain balanced insights into its own workings, so that it can see the ways in which it’s causing stress and suffering, and let them go effectively.

This technique is part of a comprehensive path of mind training that involves not only meditation but also the development of generosity and virtue. The basic approach in each part of this training is the same: to understand all your actions as part of a chain of causes and effects, so that you can direct the causes in a more positive direction. With every action in thought, word, or deed, you reflect on what you’re doing while you’re doing it. You look for the motivation leading to your actions, and the results your actions give rise to. As you reflect, you learn to question your actions in a specific way:

Do they lead to stress and suffering, or to the end of stress and suffering?
If they lead to stress, are they necessary?
If not, why do them again?
If they lead to the end of stress, how can you master them as skills?
Training in virtue and generosity asks these questions of your words and deeds. Training in meditation approaches all events in the mind as actions—whether they’re thoughts or emotions—and questions them in the same way. In other words, it forces you to look at your thoughts and emotions less in terms of their content, and more in terms of where they come from and where they lead.

This strategy of observing your actions and probing them with these questions is directly related to the problem it’s meant to solve: the stresses and sufferings caused by your actions. That’s why it underlies the training as a whole. Meditation simply allows you to observe your actions more carefully, and to uncover and abandon ever more subtle levels of stress caused by those actions. It also develops the mental qualities that strengthen your ability to act in skillful ways.

Although the meditation technique described here is part of a specifically Buddhist training, you don’t have to be Buddhist to follow it. It can help in overcoming problems that aren’t specific to Buddhists. After all, Buddhists aren’t the only people who cause themselves stress and suffering, and the qualities of mind developed through meditation don’t have a Buddhist copyright. Mindfulness, alertness, concentration, and discernment benefit everyone who develops them. All that’s asked is that you give these qualities a serious try.

The purpose of this book is to present the practice of meditation—along with the larger training of which it’s a part—in a way that’s easy to read and to put into practice. The book is divided into five parts, each part followed by a list of additional resources— books, articles, and audio files—that will help you explore the issues discussed in that part in more detail.

The first part of the book contains instructions in the basic steps of how to meditate. The second part gives advice on how to deal with some of the problems that may come up as you practice. The third part deals with issues that arise as you try to make meditation a part of your life as a whole. The fourth part deals with issues that arise as your meditation progresses to a higher level of skill. The fifth part deals with how to choose and relate to a meditation teacher who can give you the type of personalized training no book can possibly provide.

HOW TO READ THIS BOOK

I’ve tried to cover most of the issues that a committed meditator will encounter in a self-directed practice. For this reason, if you’re brand new to meditation and are not yet ready to commit to a serious practice, you will find more material in this book than you’ll immediately need. Still, you can find plenty of useful guidance here if you read selectively. A good approach would be to read just what’s necessary to get started meditating and then put the book down to give it a try.

To get started:

Read the discussion of “Breath” in the following section (pages 14 to 16), down to the heading, “Why the breath.”
Skip to the section titled, “Focusing on the Breath” in Part One (pages 28 to 32). Read the six steps listed there until you can hold them in mind. Then find a comfortable place to sit and try following as many of the steps as you feel comfortable attempting. If the steps are too detailed for you, read the article, “A Guided Meditation,” listed at the end of Part One, or sit down and meditate while listening to any of the audio files with the same title available on www.dhammatalks.org.
If you encounter problems as you get started, return to Part One and also consult Part Two.
As for the rest of the book, you can save that till later, when you’re ready to raise the level of your commitment.

Even then, it will be wise to read the book selectively—especially Part Three. There the advice is again aimed at a fully committed meditator. Some of it may involve more commitment than you’re ready to make, so take whatever advice seems practical in the context of your current life and values, and leave the rest for other people—or for yourself at a later time.

Remember, nothing in the practice of meditation is ever forced on you. The only compulsion comes from an inner force: your own desire to be free from self-inflicted suffering and stress.