The Buddha on Breathing

Meditating with or on the breath has a very distinguished history! Working with the breath to develop concentration, awareness, and insight dates back to well before the Buddha, into the earliest practices of the sages, mystics, and yogis of the Indian sub-continent.

The Buddha found meditating on the breath incredibly powerful, so placed a very strong emphasis on it in his teaching. On Saturday I went to a mindfulness teachers workshop at the ZenYoga studio on the subject of what the Buddha taught about breathing, run by my Zen teacher Daizan Skinner. 

When he was just 7 years old, sat under a tree while his father (the King of the local province) was presiding over the annual ploughing ceremony, the little Gautama Buddha entered into a spontaneous state of meditation. Tradition says he entered this first state of meditation by means of the breath.

The boy Gautama at 7yrs old sitting under a tree in spontaneous meditation

Later, this experience proved crucial to his spiritual quest towards full liberation from the suffering caused by life. He remembers "I thought of a time when my father was working and I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree: quite secluded from sensual desires, secluded from unwholesome things I had entered upon and abode in the first meditation."

Interestingly, the Buddha was very much against any practices that held or prolonged the breath – as is found in traditional Hatha Yoga (and was probably widely practised at the time of the Buddha) – he advocated relaxed, natural breathing. Through experience he found that "stopping the in-breaths and out-breaths in [his] mouth and nose... [creates] a loud sound of winds (energy) coming from my ear holes... violent winds in [his] head... and belly." He found "each time, though tireless energy was aroused in me and unremitting mindfulness established [his] body was over-wrought and uncalm because [he] was exhausted by the painful effort."

The sutras claim that "the Buddha himself declared that he realised perfect Self-Awakening through the practice of anapanasati (breath meditation)" and that "concentration by mindfulness of breathing, when developed and cultivated, leads to a pleasant dwelling in this very life and to mindfulness and clear comprehension." He even taught his son, Rahula, "if mindfulness of breath is cultivated with continuous practice, then there is a vast harvest, there is great richness."

After lunch we spent some time meditating on the breath, then looking at the development of breath meditation from the earliest Buddhist accounts, through the different schools that have arisen since, into China and Japan and Zen.

One of the key early Buddhist sutras dealing with the breath is the 'Satipatanna Sutra'. "Sati" has come to be translated as "mindfulness", so this is the 'Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness'. In it, the Buddha explains that the most direct, immediate (or in some translations, the only) way to reach enlightenment is through the four foundations of mindfulness.

These are "contemplating the body in the body", "contemplating the feelings in the feelings", "contemplating consciousness in consciousness", and "contemplating mental objects (i.e. thoughts, ideas, concepts) in mental objects."

He goes on to say "And how does a Bhikkhu [a monk] live contemplating the body in the body? ... [He] goes to an empty place, sits down, crosses his legs, straightens his body, and arouses mindfulness of the breath... Mindful, he breaths in, and mindful, he breaths out." Like this we can contemplate the body in the body via mindfulness of the breath.

Then he says "Let alone seven years, let alone half a month, if anyone would develop these four foundations of mindfulness... for seven days, one of two fruits can be expected for him: either liberating knowledge right here and now, or... non-return (i.e. nirvana)."

Wow, just seven days...!

So it's clear the Buddha held mindfulness of the breath in very high esteem! He says it really is the most direct way to fully wake up and realise the truth.

In the last part of the workshop, we each took on a question relating to what we'd learnt and came up with a little presentation on it. My question was: "How dows this practice relate to the four noble truths?"


The four noble truths were one of the first things the Buddha taught after his great enlightenment, and basically sum up the whole of Buddhist teaching. The four noble truths are:

1. Suffering exists as an inherent part of life
2. Suffering arises due to wanting things we don't have (craving, greed), not wanting things we do have (aversion, hate), and confusion or delusion as to the way things are now.
3. There is a way to end this suffering for good (liberation, enlightenment)
4. And that way is called the 8-fold path, and includes things like right livelihood, right speech, right mindfulness, etc.

By becoming aware of our breath, we automatically bring our attention to the present moment (we can't be breathing in the past or future!). With our attention on how things are right now, breathing and noticing the body in the body, we allow any thoughts, feelings or memories that arise to simply come and go. This presence and non-judgmental acceptance gives rise to an increasing sense of calm and clear understanding. With this clear, relaxed and open mind we begin to see where we are holding on to things (events, feelings, concepts, material objects), rejecting things, wanting things to be different, or being confused. Mindfulness of the breath is the vehicle we use to travel along the road towards the end of suffering.

If you'd like to explore the practice of mindfulness a little more, I run drop-in classes and 8-week courses at the ZenYoga studio in Camberwell, London. See here for more info.