Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

30
ing contact. There is nothing to get hold of, to appreciate or to
reject; there is just the experiencing of contact. There is no room
for imagination, for idealisation, for retention, for identification, for
it is essentially the movement of air which can only be experienced
in contact. Thus, there is no desire and no disgust. It can be experienced
in total relaxation, observed only through the sense of
contact, leaving no room for served only through the sense of contact,
leaving no room for the conception of ideas and ideals. Just
breathing! With a bare minimum of attention there is awareness:
this is an incoming breath, this is an outgoing breath. There is not
even a following of the breath through the windpipe into the lungs,
no observation of the lungs compressing to return the breath after
extracting the oxygen. Here is just the contact of a breath with
the nostrils, and nothing more, nothing beyond. Here is no work
for the image-making mind and hence there is no food for thought.
Even likes and dislikes cannot find a footing, because there is just
a breath, and another breath, and another. One, two, three, four,
five ... just counting in the beginning with small numbers, not more
than ten (which would complicate), not less than five (which would
require too frequent starts in counting). Counting is not essential,
but initially it keeps the mind without distraction on the breaths
only, with ‘bare attention’. One, two, three, four, five...
Now what happens?
There is no retention of breath, as it is done in Yogic system
of ‘prāṇayāma’. Without strain or effort a short breath is noticed
as short, a long breath as long. And in this pure and simple observation,
all agitation in breathing, which is a symptom of mental
commotion and disturbance, will gently subside into a natural and
rhythmic process, the physical sign of mental health. This is not
objective purpose of the form of concentration, but it will naturally
produce a state of tranquillity (samādhi) with the accompanying
feeling of well-being. Just as we do not know or appreciate physical
health, till we lose it in sickness, so this mental health is not some-