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The Mindfulness of Breathing is a calming meditation where we focus on our breathing to help find respite from mental restlessness, and gently train our “monkey mind”. I learned this technique and practise it regularly at our local Buddhist Centre, and I hope you find this post about it useful.

Disclaimer

As with most things on the internet, it comes with a disclaimer: I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re suffering from an acute mental health crisis. That’s a bit like having a broken leg (i.e. a serious acute condition) and discovering a blog post on running and keeping fit (i.e. a post about general wellbeing). If you’re experiencing a crisis, please reach out to someone, perhaps The Samaritans (telephone 116 123 in the UK) who are lovely, or chat to your GP.

This disclaimer actually comes from personal experience. Whereas meditation is an indispensable part of my life, I found it utterly awful and best avoided while I was struggling with an acute depressive episode some years back. Once I was back in the general swing of work, life, bills, socialising and dealing with the common-or-garden life stuff, meditation practice really came into its own for me.

The stages

The Meditation is broken up into four stages:

• Counting on the outbreath
• Counting on the inbreath
• Watch the breath as it comes and goes, in and out…
• Focus on the point of entry of the breath into the body

While meditating in the Buddhist Centre, the person leading the meditation will mark each stage with a bell or a tap on a meditation bowl, and if there are any beginners or anyone new to this meditation, they will talk us through the stages. If I’m meditating alone, I will use the Insight Timer meditation app.

Sit comfortably

I sit on a couple of cushions, as I found myself nodding off in a chair. Some people try to go for the crossed-legs posture, or the full lotus (!), palms upwards on the knees, making an ‘o’ between a finger and thumb. I never do this, and haven’t done it in the 15 years I’ve been meditating, simply because it’s uncomfortable.

If meditation is uncomfortable, then (a) it’s less likely to be a “good” meditation and (b) you’re more likely to find excuses to not do it, or give up after six weeks or something. Monks and householders in India, Sri Lanka and other areas had been sitting on floors, cross-legged like that since they were children, but here in the UK most of us were plonked on stools and little chairs from a very young age and developed a different posture.

So I kneel on a mat, sitting on a couple of round cushions to give me a bit of height.

It can get cold meditating, so I’ll wrap a blanket round my waist and tuck my hands into a bit just beneath my navel, this helps prevent strain on my shoulders.

I’ll then sit awhile, wiggling a bit until I feel properly “supported”. Sometimes an image of stacked Jenga blocks will come to mind, or a Weeble, or I’ll mentally picture a thread from the base of my spine reaching through the top of my head and disappearing into the sky. This is just to help posture: I’m not “channeling energies” or anything. I just want to sit up straight to minimise backache.

What I’m aiming for is a kind of posture and attention a bit like that of a cat sitting in the middle of a room:

And from here I’ll let my eyes gently half-close, and just breathe

Just breathe

For a bit, I’ll just breathe and allow by breath to settle down into a natural rhythm.

Mindfulness of the outbreath

I’ll start by mentally counting on the outbreath.

Breathe in, breathe out, count “one”. Breathe in, breathe out, count “two”. Breathe in, breathe out, count “three”… And so on up to “ten”. And then back to breathe in, breathe out, count “one”, breathe in, breathe out, count “two”…

If my mind wanders, and it will, I bring my breath back to the counting, starting with “one” again. Now, here’s an important part of the practice: do so gently and kindly. This is very important, as one of the life-lessons of the Mindfulness of Breathing I’ve found most important is to be kind to myself if I fall off a wagon, and just get back on again without self-recrimination. I’ll write about this in more depth later, but for now, just remember to “be kind” if you lose count or start thinking about your shopping list or having a mental row with your partner or whatever, and start again from “one”.

Mindfulness of the inbreath

Count “one”, breathe in, breathe out… Count “two”, breathe in, breathe out… And so on up to “ten”, and then start again. The count should go right before you breathe in: you may find there’s a little gap between finishing breathing out and starting to breathe in again, so you count just before you start breathing in.

Again, you may find yourself having discursive thoughts about DIY, the latest episode of the Mandalorian, imaginary political arguments with the writer of an opinion column you read over breakfast. If this happens, again, just gently and kindly bring your attention back to breathing and counting. You can always attend to these things later, this is your time, your space and little mindfulness oasis from all of that stuff.

I may hear traffic outside or be disturbed by noise. At our Buddhist Centre, we sometimes get football fans walking past on the way to a Norwich FC game. It sounds like they’re having fun, I have no idea what they’re chanting but I just let them do their thing, I’m doing mine. Roadworks, drills and lorries beeping? Killer pumping bass out of a neighbour’s Fiesta? It’s just life, I just let it do its thing.

I’d only interrupt a meditation if I or someone else is in peril, or there’s a genuine physical need. Other than that the world can get on without my attention for half an hour. It goes without saying that you should really go for a pee before starting meditation, but sometimes you get caught short, in which case mindfully stop, quietly and discreetly leave, pee, and just as quietly, mindfully and discreetly sneak back in again and pick up where you left off.

Coughs, sneezes and itches? If you need to cough, cough. Ditto sneezes, scratches, adjustments to posture, stretching a dead leg… Just bring yourself back to the mindfulness of breathing meditation.

Just watching the breath

For the third stage, we just leave the counting behind, and just pay attention to the breath as a whole, as it comes in and out. What does it feel like? Is it cool or warm? Where’s it coming from? Where’s it going?

Sometimes I experience a kind of synaesthesia. Breath comes in, it is a silvery-grey slope on a mountainside. Breathe goes out, and it’s a downward slope on the other side. Or maybe I experience tubes or lights moving. If I notice this I bring my attention back to the breathing: it’s not a sign of enlightenment, it’s a sign I’m nodding off. The same goes for any images: I’ll bring my focus back to breathing.

Often though I just experience a kind of stillness and clarity. Sometimes my monkey-mind will still find things to distract me with, but by this stage it’s usually a quiet emptiness. Which is nice. It’s not nibbana, or enlightenment, but a very restorative space to be in. Is this “mindfulness”?

Focussing on a point

The last stage we focus on a single point where our breath enters our body. For me it’s usually the very tip of my nose. If I use any point inside my nose, I’ll often sneeze.

I find this stage very restorative. Someone in my class once mentioned “the sky-like mind”. Experiencing my mind free of thoughts was quite interesting, and this metaphor seemed very apt. It felt like a sky, and thoughts felt like little distant clouds. More prosaically: if I’m not my thoughts, what am I? What is it that experiences thoughts?

Ending the meditation

At the end, I’ll sit awhile abiding in a peaceful state, gradually checking in on my body and surroundings. Maybe a stretch. I’ll stand up slowly, and perhaps have some tea.

Links and resources

I don’t receive any payment, bribes or anything to put these links here! I just thought they may be handy.

The Insight Timer site and app have a guided meditation by Bodhipaksa that I use: https://insighttimer.com/bodhipaksa/guided-meditations/mindfulness-of-breathing-in-four-stages

If I don’t use Bodhipaksa’s guided meditation, I have some bells set up on timers in the app that ring for each stage.

The Buddhist Centre Website has a more concise description of the Mindfulness of Breathing here: https://thebuddhistcentre.com/text/mindfulness-breathing

I recently bought a record player, and dusted off my old vinyl collection from my student days. After having streamed music for years now, I noticed a real shift in my appreciation of music as a result. Here are my observations.

The Purchase

Three weeks ago, I received notice that I had secured a great new job. Serendipitously, Depeche Mode’s latest album, “Memento Mori” was released the same day, so a copy of that seemed very apt. On a whim I bought it on vinyl and needed a record player to go with it. I wanted something small, neat and with reasonable sound quality that would enable me to hear the details in my music. Nothing showy or expensive.

I like music with complex structures, like electronica (e.g. the Aphex Twin, Autechre), jazz (Charlie Mingus, Ornette Coleman) and other tightly-produced albums like Echo and the Bunnymen’s “Ocean Rain” and Depeche Mode’s “Violator”. However music, once a great love of mine, had inexplicably fallen off my radar over the last 10 years or so. I wasn’t sure why.

From Digital to Analogue

I honestly don’t remember the last time I bought any music in a physical medium. My last vinyl purchase must have been back in 1995 from Norwich Market. As a student back then, buying an old vinyl LP for £1.99 was an inexpensive and low-risk way of trying out new bands. As for CDs, I think my last purchase was Autechre’s “Exai” a decade ago.

Since then, I found digital media to be liberating: there was no longer any need to clutter my life up with CDs, Blu-ray and other stuff. It seemed to me to be easier on the environment to not purchase bits of plastic which would one day end up in landfill or (more optimistically) recycled. After all, I have no children so in all likelihood when I die someone will have to dispose of all my stuff somewhere and somehow. As Depeche Mode’s album reminds us: “one day you will die”. And when you die your stuff’s still about and needs a place to go. Probably landfill.

So I streamed. I discovered many new artists (Editors, The National), experimented with Jazz, Folk and other genres I’d never have bought, and cultivated a life around digital media to keep my space free of loads of books, CDs and Blu-rays.

Something didn’t feel quite right though…

I noticed that I rarely listened to an album all the way through. Music had somehow become disposable and cheap. A few years ago, a good friend asked me: “Gav, do you remember when we used to just sit around listening to CDs all evening… When was the last time you actually did that?”.

I realised I’d fallen into treating music, something I used to value, something that gave me deep joy, as a disposable commodity. I could hardly name any songs by The Editors apart from the one about smokers outside a hospital door, and I hadn’t listened to a National album all the way through. The music was there, but it just wasn’t present in my life with the immediacy and detail it was when I was younger.

Ah well, thought I. Just getting older perhaps. This is why old men shout at clouds. But I found it went a bit deeper than that.

The return of “slow music” to my life

Since I was a teen my favourite band has been Depeche Mode. I was thrilled to find that their latest album “Memento Mori” is a thing of rare beauty, with gossamer-fine production and warm, instantly-likeable songs mixed up with ambitious experimentation.

When I received confirmation that I’d got a new job I really wanted I bought it digitally as a treat.

Still, something felt a bit “off” though. I wanted a “trophy”, something I could hold in my hand. I went off to HMV and instead of picking up the CD, something nudged me to buy it on vinyl.

And then, dear reader, I bought a record player.

Before I knew it, I was down a rabbit hole of digging out old LPs and cleaning them up. Some weren’t even mine: I found REM’s “Automatic for the People” in my box for example and I have no idea where that came from. I remember a guy called Craig gave me a load of stuff before he moved to Hong Kong. Maybe it was one of his. Anyway, I sat on the floor of my living room gently wiping off dust and playing through a few of them. They were all in pretty good, not-warped condition despite having been kept in a box for 20+ years.

My first play? “Ocean Rain” by Echo and the Bunnymen, one of the most beautiful albums ever recorded.

I have several record shops nearby: Venus Music just round the corner, Soundclash, and an HMV in the city centre. Soundclash has a great Jazz collection, and also had “Selected Ambient Works” by the Aphex Twin so I bought that, Brubeck’s “Time Out”, some Mingus, some Coltrane and a record bag.

Sitting and listening

The first thing I became aware of was how I would now sit and listen to music, rather than just have it on in the background. I found myself noticing all kinds of little details in the productions and arrangements of songs: a bit of reverb here, some instrumentation there, a little beep somewhere else. The music seemed “fuller” somehow, and more interesting.

Now, I have a fast internet connection, and streaming comes through at a very high resolution from Spotify and Deezer, so I don’t think it was a bitrate issue. I also have some music on lossless-FLAC on my NAS drive, listen on good headphones (Audio Technica ATH M50s), so I don’t think there was anything physical in the lack of detail I was experiencing. Instead I suspected it was something to do with intention and attention on my part.

My player isn’t automatic. Playing an LP involves a tiny bit of time and effort: I have to fetch the album, carefully remove it from the sleeve, place the disc on the platter, move the arm to the edge of the disc, start the turntable, lower the arm and carefully put the lid down.

This is a very small bit of work, but it is enough for me to commit to listening to a whole side at least of an LP. I’m not skipping forward, backwards or shuffling either between albums, tracks and genres. Instead I’ve put the thing on, and I’m going to listen to it.

Maybe a kind of “Sunk Cost Fallacy” is at work here, I’m not sure.

Caring and emotional investment

Vinyl is a delicate thing. It can warp, scratch and if you spill coffee on it, well, removing it can be a bother to say the least.

My old vinyl collection dates back to the 1990s. I spent a happy afternoon cleaning those old albums, and found I could remember where I was when I bought them, and had a number of other vivid memories of listening to them in student residence rooms and when friends came round. Some albums were rather dog-eared and filthy, but a bit of a wipe and they all played rather well. I even managed to mostly remove a solidified sticker off of Joy Division’s “Unknown Pleasures”. Going through them all and giving them a good clean was very satisfying.

With streaming, there’s no need to care for an MP3 or OGG file on someone else’s server. It’s just impersonal numbers. There are no creases on the sleeves from where you accidentally sat on the thing or tiny scratch where you dropped it accidentally and watched it bounce off the corner of the table shouting “nooo!”.

When I did teacher-training, we talked about a book by Anne Fine called “Flour Babies” – I don’t know if caring for vinyl elicits the same kinds of attachment and self-discovery as Fine describes in that book, but the connection is definitely more personal than with a streamed file.

Buying and owning

I find that actually paying money specifically for something means I tend to value it more, while if I’m getting something for free I tend to value it less. I don’t make the most of it or generally forget about it. This McGuffin was free, it was fun for a while, now it’s in the back of the cupboard. That McOtherthing was £45, I’ve paid good money for it, I’ll milk it for all its worth.

If I’m paying £10 per month for Spotify, I’m getting the Spotify service. I’m not actually paying for individual albums or songs. And there’s a flood of different bands, albums and tracks to choose from. David Bowie predicted that music would become a utility, much like water or electricity, a prediction that largely turned out to be true.

But I found I was paying for a background service, a bit like the TV licence (for the benefit of overseas readers, advertising does not fund the BBC, we all chip in for it via the TV Licence paying about £150 per year). Each month I paid Spotify £10-ish, I may or may not use it, but like the BBC it’s there and available.

Psychologists sometimes refer to “The Endowment Effect“, a cognitive bias where we tend to value things we own more than things we don’t, or the “Mere Ownership Effect” (which is related). I felt little emotional or material investment, and certainly no sense of “ownership” towards anything that was on Spotify. None of it was “mine”, and so I found I generally cared less and paid less attention. To me, music had become like wallpaper rather than an event and an artifact in its own right.

Immersion and imagery

One of the things I love about Jazz and Blues LPs is the way they have sleeve notes. For example, on my copy of “Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus”, Nat Hendoff has provided a good 1000 words about the album, individual songs and Charles Mingus himself.

Depeche Mode albums typically have wonderful photography by Anton Corbijn. I’ve often felt that Anton Corbijn’s photography and videomaking was just as much of the whole “experience” of Depeche Mode as the sounds and textures they use in their synths. Likewise the abstraction and design in Warp Records’ albums has always stirred me. And as a child I used to love the weird, fantastical artwork by Gerald Scarfe in Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”.

I find these visual and textual elements of an album provide a wonderful, world-building context for the music within. Music that itself has been carefully arranged track-by-track to provide an emotional journey.

I have missed the way that a CD or LP provides a physical artifact that adds layers of context and meaning to the music. I find it somehow “grounds” the compositions and performances in something tangible, and in the process giving us another way to relate to the work.

This kind of tangible artifact is missing from streaming services. You can see the album art, but you can’t hold it, and you almost never get inlay art, lyrics or cover notes.

The paralysis of choice

When faced with a vast, impersonal collection of millions of songs, I find everything feels diffuse, impersonal. I feel lost in a vast sea of digital data.

I find it hard to visualise a million. If I take some 2mm graph paper and make a 2m x 2m square out of it I will have a million tiny squares. Eighty of these will give me 80 million squares, the number of songs on Spotify.

Spotify does not lay out all of its songs visibly (this would be difficult given the sheer number!). I have to search through or find them via algorithms that suggest related artists. Spotify is a black box with a tiny window and esoteric mechanisms inside. Whatever I choose, there may be something better or more suitable. My choice of music will always come with a nagging awareness that I’ve limited myself. I may be missing out on something better, why don’t I check out that other thing over there?

I feel a similar thing with Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Video. Paradoxically I feel that in the face of so many options no matter what I choose I will always be shortchanged. I can’t possibly see everything, and therefore all kinds of things are hidden from me.

And so I roam the search functions like a hungry ghost, skipping songs, quitting shows half-way through, forever seeking some kind of fulfilment but unable to remain still, forever unsatisfied.

By contrast, my vinyl collection is about 50 LPs, and sits in a homemade pine crate. I can see everything in my collection, it’s limited and small (at the moment), but when I choose to listen to something from my personally curate collection I feel I’m making an informed decision, and I know what I’m not listening to. Choosing what to listen to is painless, intuitive and I feel I can settle back and enjoy a whole album without feeling an itchy urge to try something else.

Clicks, creases, dogears and pops

There may be clicks and pops on the vinyl, but they’re my clicks and pops. They make my albums unique, and somehow encode my experiences with the album. There’s a little “pop!” just before Will Sergeant’s guitar kicks in on Echo and the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon”, and for me that’s somehow part of “my” version of the track.

Life seems a tiny bit calmer and more personal now I’ve gone back to having my own, personally-curated, uniquely-scuffed, physical musical collection. It has a charm about it, a warmth and humanity. A couple of cubic feet of “me” sitting in the corner of my living room. Yeah, I could get into this.

I started journalling four years ago during an Introduction to Counselling Course. We were encouraged to keep a journal of reflections, and my journal has since become a constant companion with unexpected benefits.

Continue reading “Journalling: a therapist in my pocket”

There are many different meditation practices to be found in Buddhism, Yoga, or even in your local Mindfulness classes. The Metta Bhavana is one that is taught at my local Buddhist Centre, and its purpose is the cultivation (‘Bhavana’) of compassion and kindness (‘Metta’).

‘Metta’ is often translated as ‘loving kindness’, with elements of ‘goodwill’, ‘harmony’ and ‘friendliness’ added to the mix. It’s not a sexual thing, nor is it a mawkish, saccharine sentimentality. My own experience of Metta during meditation has always been of something incredibly strong, yet comforting and nourishing, but like most metaphysical concepts it’s difficult to describe in everyday words.

The Five Stages of The Metta Bhavana Meditation

There are five stages to the Metta Bhavana meditation:

1. Metta and oneself
2. Metta and a close friend
3. Metta and someone you feel neutral about
4. Metta and someone you find difficult to deal with
5. Metta and everyone

We ring a bell at the beginning of each stage, and at the end of the meditation session.

Metta and oneself

In the first stage of the meditation at the first bell, we meditate upon cultivating and experiencing metta towards ourselves. This is a very important step, as negative feelings towards ourselves can make us susceptible to projection of those negative feelings towards others, ‘martyrdom’ or general emotional burnout.

I personally find it easiest to connect with a sense of metta by recalling times when I’ve experienced it, and bringing to mind those feelings. For example by thinking back to times when I’ve felt loved, well, and happy. I also try to recall times when I’ve felt kindness towards others, or witnessed acts of kindness between others.

I personally find it easiest to connect with a sense of metta by recalling times when I’ve experienced it, and bringing to mind those feelings. For example by thinking back to times when I’ve felt loved, well, and happy. I also try to recall times when I’ve felt kindness towards others, or witnessed acts of kindness between others.

Metta and a close friend

For stage after the second bell, we develop the feelings of metta we have for a close friend.

Some caveats are appropriate here! I would absolutely not recommend choosing a member of a gender or type you are habitually attracted to, as this can introduce all sorts of complications! For similar reasons a family member is not such a good idea either, as family dynamics can lead to distraction if they surface during meditation. Instead, choose a platonic friend, someone you feel comfortable generally being with.

Some caveats are appropriate here! I would absolutely not recommend choosing a member of a gender or type you are habitually attracted to, as this can introduce all sorts of complications! For similar reasons a family member is not such a good idea either, as family dynamics can lead to distraction if they surface during meditation. Instead, choose a platonic friend, someone you feel comfortable generally being with.

Metta and a Neutral Person

After the third bell, we choose someone we can picture, but someone we don’t necessarily have any feelings for one way or another. Typical examples given could be your postman, or someone who serves you regularly in a shop, or a neighbour you don’t know too well.

Meditate upon your sense of metta towards them the same way you did your friend. See what feelings of goodwill you find for them inside you.

Shop assistants and postmen are the classic examples: see what happens if you try someone of higher social status and income than yourself, perhaps the manager of the marketing team in your company, or your boss’ boss.

Metta and a ‘difficult’ person

After the fourth bell, we aim to cultivate metta for someone we find a bit difficult. This should be someone that rubs us up the wrong way, perhaps challenges us, but to keep things simple should not be one’s mortal enemy. The more difficult the difficult person is, the more likely we are to poison the well with discursive thoughts about revenge, mentally rehearsed conversations, or even a sense that we’ll never feel good things for this person.

When things get tough I find imagining the person as a child helps. Or imagining them playing with their kids or their dog in a park. I bring to mind the fact that they’re a person just like me, with their own stresses and issues. They love, and are loved by, other people, who will experience them very differently to the way I do.

Metta and everyone

After the fifth bell, we endeavour to ‘equalise’ the metta. Mentally review your experiences of metta throughout the last four stages, and bring yourself and the three other individuals to mind. Bring your ‘best metta’ to all of them.

Gradually extend your metta outward, beyond the four individuals so far. Consider those sitting with you in the room, those walking past outside, anyone elsewhere in the building, in the street, the city…

How far out can you spread your metta? To the rest of the country? The animals in the cities and countrysides… The stock traders on Wall Street… The farmers working fields outside Cambodian villages… Scientists on the ISS… Workers in the diamond mines of Botswana… Fishermen on the Junks outside Hong Kong… There are 7-going-on-8 billion people out there and trillions of animals

Closing words

I have been doing this meditation now for a few years. It hasn’t turned me into a modern-day version of Jesus or Gandhi though. I still snap at people when they bug me and occasionally lose my rag (especially when interrupted whilst in the middle of concentrating on something – this, apparently, is a characteristic introvert trait).

However I have found the practice to be emotionally restorative, and I feel it has contributed greatly to my positive disposition toward the human race in general. I have also found that if you think kindly towards people, they stress you out less.

I strongly believe that in our world of online hostility, corporate sociopathy and increasing global inequality, cultivating our own kindness and compassion is possibly the most urgent and important thing we can do right now.

We need to take responsibility for our own little corners of the world, and tend our own small gardens. When we cross paths with others, it’s beneficial for all to act from a position of compassion and empathy.

You’ll find the porcupine-warming tale “The Fable of the Porcupine” on many inspirational websites, and many have shared it on other social media. It’s essentially a reformulation of Schopenhauer’s “Hedgehogs’ Dilemma”, which poses the question: how can we manage to live together and function as a family unit, a social unit or society, when we inadvertently hurt each other?

Continue reading “Fable of the Porcupine”