Why Sean Fargo Recommends Mindfulness of Breathing

Speaker 1 · 0:01Mindfulness of breathing is a foundational practice. But it's not merely for beginners. This thousands of years old meditation technique has something to offer even the most seasoned practitioners. In fact, some spend their entire lives on just this one practice. Welcome to the Mindfulness Exercises podcast. May this be a source of inspiration and motivation in your mindfulness practice and teachings. In today's episode, we hear from Sean Fargo on why he recommends breath awareness practice. Sean shares helpful suggestions for those who teach mindfulness, but also shares his insights on why approaching mindfulness of breath with a beginner's mind can be life-changing for anyone at any step along the path.

Speaker 2 · 1:04You know, mindfulness of breathing, I recommend it typically as the foundational practice. I usually recommend it as the first practice that we teach. You don't have to, but typically it's a nice beginner practice. And you know, it's something that you can start off with in a teaching session without much need for explanation beforehand. You don't even really need to say that we're going to do a meditation or what we're about to do. You can just invite people to notice sensations of the belly as you breathe. You don't have to close your eyes, you don't have to get into a special posture. Just noticing, oh yeah, sensations of belly, of the belly, or the chest, or the nostrils as I breathe. Can I just be curious about that? What can I notice? What sensations are here? Not trying to breathe a certain way, not trying to figure anything out, just noticing what can I feel. So very simple and can be very foundational. And I know plenty of mindfulness practitioners who only do mindfulness of breathing. And it can seem simple, and there's a lot of nuance that unfolds the more we pay attention. You know, the belly can be a wonderful anchor for a lot of people, and it's typically maybe the easiest anchor for most people because there is such a coarse movement of the belly that it's more noticeable for most people. So it's easier to have the belly as an anchor for our awareness of breathing, and you can try out having other anchors. So, you know, you can try having the lungs be an anchor of awareness, but typically the other primary anchor other than the belly would be the nostrils, especially like the tips of the nostrils. Can you sense into the movement of air as the air goes in and out of the nostrils? It's a little bit more nuanced, but can you feel the air in and out of the nostrils as you breathe naturally? Sometimes the upper lip, we might feel sensation, especially if you have a like a big mustache. You know, if you can breathe through your nose, I would recommend that. But if you can't, there's nothing wrong with breathing out your mouth. I mean, you don't want to like promote mindfulness of breathing through the mouth at all times during the day. There's a lot of science that shows that it's not so helpful. But if you can't breathe through your nose, then that's fine. We don't want to be too dogmatic with this. But yeah, like sensing into the areas around the nostrils would be sort of the second area I would invite people to notice. You know, plenty of people will try to sense into the air, you know, like anywhere between the nostrils and the belly, like throat, lungs, down to the diaphragm. So yeah, it's something to be curious about, but typically the nostrils would be the other anchor area. And sensations around the nostrils, especially is good for fostering a sense of concentration or focus because it does usually take more intention or attention to sense into breathing at the nostrils, so it can be a wonderful tool for building concentration and steadiness of mind. I do think that putting your hand on your belly can be very helpful to you know gain a sense of connection with the belly. And with that, starts the self-criticism. I think that's relatively common for those self-judgments to arise or the fear of letting your belly go. Um, as we guide others with this practice, and as we do it ourselves, you know, it can be very helpful to emphasize the non-judgmental aspect of mindfulness. So you can say, you know, like whether your breathing is shallow or deep, we're not judging either of those to be good or bad, right or wrong, we're just noticing. And then likewise for belly fat or the size of our belly, we're not judging the shape of our belly or size of our belly to be good or bad, right or wrong either. We're just noticing how it feels. And so one way to encourage like actually sensing into the belly rather than getting caught up in the self-criticism or fear of criticism is um by actually offering a few things for people to notice on a visceral level. So you can say things like, can we be curious whether we feel heaviness or lightness around the belly? Can we feel sensations on the front side, middle, back of the belly? Can we notice sensations on the left or right side as we breathe, sensations of movement, or stillness? Can we notice temperature, like warmth or coolness, you know, duration, duration of exhale, duration of inhale, duration of pause, moistness or dryness? So you can offer things to be curious about, but you can also say sort of imbue a sense of caring awareness around the belly to help diffuse the judgment piece. So, you know, if you're using your hand, you can almost like kind of can you place hand on the belly in a very gentle, supportive way that brings a sense of care to the belly, as if a grandmother might hold you. You know, can you invite that sense of care around the belly? Or this caring curiosity or gentle curiosity, gentle awareness around the belly. So emphasizing the caring piece or the heart piece, whether it's with the hand or not. You know, there's all sorts of things you could do that are kind of peripheral to mindfulness, like sometimes when we sense into different parts of the body, we might invite a sense of appreciation or gratitude for that area of the body, like you know, like sensing into the stomach of all that it does for us, processing food and liquids, you know, liver, like areas around the belly. We can learn more about what different organs do, and learn more about the breath and its function of the body and bringing appreciation to the breath itself. So we can sort of invite that heartfelt quality to the practice as we breathe. I tend to emphasize bodily sensation, partly because it's easier for most people to understand. Oh, yeah, I'm sensing into my belly as I breathe, noticing the sensations of movement around the belly, or the sensations of you know how the air rubs against the skin or the insides of nostrils. Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Sometimes if you talk about sensing into the breath, it can seem a little amorphous, or like, where's the there? Like, what do you mean? You know, if you let sort of the anchor of the body go, if you let that anchor go and just sense into sort of the process of breathing or the fullness of breathing in a more general area, some people may be able to kind of understand that or sense that. I find that that option isn't taught that much, at least in most of the circles I'm in. It's usually more of a localized bodily sensation. I think yogic circles tend to emphasize sensing into the breath a lot more, and there's a lot of value and validity to that. I don't have that much experience teaching that. And in my experience, I think that a lot of people, when they're asked to sense into the breath, it's easier for the mind to wander or to conceptualize breathing. I do think that a lot of people will think that they're bringing mindfulness to the breath, but really it's more of a concept of breathing, which takes us out of the actual experience of noticing or being aware of breathing. So I think to teach that option C, it's helpful to already have a good working baseline of concentration to be able to kind of stay with the breath and to be able to stay sort of open to the sensations of the breath or to breathing. But you know, a lot of people want a location or they kind of need a little bit more support, in my experience. So lots of people have gone into like samadhi or very deep states of concentration by sensing into parts of the body, including myself, and some people have opinions on you know best ways to get into very deep states of concentration, and there are several other ways to sort of achieve deep samadhi. On a long retreat that I did, a long silent retreat, I was practicing mindfulness of breathing as the only practice. You know, I swear after a while in very deep, concentrated states, I felt like I wasn't breathing anymore. And it scared me. I'm like, oh shoot, like I gotta breathe. And so I talked to some teachers and I said, you know, I think I just stopped breathing for a while. It's actually a thing where if you get very, very, very, very, very still, you can go for minutes on end without taking an inhale. I didn't purposely hold my breath, but I just stopped breathing just naturally. And it happened a few more times after that. But I guess like the body just doesn't need more oxygen when you're in such a concentrated state sometimes. Quite a few of my teachers have experienced that type of thing too. So if you ever do find yourself getting to a place where your breathing is really, really, really relaxed, and it's probably not something to fear. I think one person mentioned that when they bring mindfulness to breathing, that they tend to like become rigid with their breath and feel like they kind of need to control it, and it's hard to relax into breathing or to breathe naturally, which comes up from time to time. I had that challenge for a few weeks when I was starting this practice. I was trying to control it. I couldn't just allow myself to breathe naturally, noticing. So, with just general mindfulness of breathing, we're not holding the breath at all. We're simply just breathing, just breathing naturally. You can hold your breath if you want to, and then just bring mindfulness to that experience. But typically, when we guide people, we're just asking them to breathe naturally. But you know, you could ask people to hold their breath on the inhale, and then might be able to sense heat rising in different parts of the body, sense of tension. If you're finding that you're kind of trying to control your breath too much, or if it's hard to kind of just breathe naturally, then you can kind of distract yourself for a while and come back to the practice later. You can put your hand on your belly and kind of allow your belly to sense into the hand, and like having a physical touch onto the belly might be able to help promote sort of a natural relaxation around it. You can take a few deep breaths, drink some water, relaxing other areas of the body, so relaxing the legs, the feet, the hands, the jaw, and inviting relaxation in other areas of the body so that it's not just the belly or not just the chest, but like inviting relaxation everywhere in the body, and then also like heart-based practices self-compassion, self-care, wishing yourself well, wishing yourself a sense of ease, so you can do kind of loving kindness for self. Like, may I be safe, healthy, happy, may I breathe with ease. But sometimes if we have this like hyper focus around just breathing, we can get too self-conscious, so opening up to the fullness of the body is often a way to help us to find that sense of natural breathing. Sometimes having something warming in your system can be helpful, hot tea or something warming to wear, like a beanie. You know, one of the first things that my first meditation teacher, he was a Taoist monk, and he really emphasized thick socks and a blanket. So do not let your feet get cold, do not let the lower half of your body get cold. At that time, I had hair, so you know, a little bit of fur to keep my head warm, but he really emphasized warmth. And so we ended up drinking a lot of green tea together and crackers, but sometimes warmth can help you to relax the breathing. I particularly like the practice of mindfulness of breathing in the winter time for some reason. Sometimes I like going outside, you know. You can really like kind of feel the coolness of the air more, like it's more palpable. It's almost like there's more concreteness to the air almost, and it kind of refreshes me. So sometimes I will take a couple of deep breaths to start to like gain connection with the breath or breathing, and um kind of revel in the freshness of the cool air. So you know, mindfulness of breathing in the winter time outside can be a very nice way to kind of wake up the senses a little bit, reconnect with the simplicity of the practice, and it can really cut through a lot of the inner workings of the brain if we're confused or frustrated. So highly recommend that for people, especially in the winter time. So those are a few recommendations of a few things to try, but emphasizing that this is not about judgment, it's not about breathing a certain way, this is not about having a flat belly or a six-pack or anything like that. We're just sensing into how we're breathing, being aware of that. You know, each breath is new, each inhale is different from any other inhale, every exhale is new. All these sensations that we feel as we breathe never happened before. Not to be too dark, but we also don't know whether we're gonna have another inhale. It's not theory or hypothetical, it's just fact, like no one knows. And the point of that is to open up to the preciousness of this breath right now. Oh, this is a gift. You can't take this for granted. Mmm, this breath, this inhale, something new, something special, something that's never happened before. What can I notice about this breath and this exhale and that pause in between? The variety of physical sensations, how we're feeling, to the change of sensations, the change in rhythm, the change in the belly, the nostrils. So you can apply beginner's mind to just about anything. A sense of wonder, novelty of this very moment. The more we really pay attention and open to our senses, the more wondrous it tends to become. Fully open to the colors and the textures, the sensations, the fact that we're in these really interesting bodies on this fascinating planet curling through space. And we're kind of twisting around. The earth is like moving. Might seem very still, but we're all moving at hundred mile hundreds of miles an hour right now. Isn't that crazy? Wonderful, amazing new breath that keeps us alive right now. Can help put things in perspective. We stop sweating the small stuff a little bit more.

Speaker 1 · 21:13The more we pay attention, the more wondrous it becomes. Thank you, Sean, for that invitation to approach each breath with gentleness, kindness, gratitude, curiosity, and awe. For by doing so, our lives are imbued with the deep richness of the present moment.