Counting breaths while meditation

[Jokingfish]

Is it useful? It makes me able to be less distracted for meditation, but the counting itself could be a distraction, yes?

6 years ago i tried counting breaths while walking, got more than a thousand with some distractions apart from counting and breathing. Wasn't an active meditator, also.

I remembered this idea of counting breaths today, did a sitting meditation, got more than 200 with no distractions apart from breathing itself and numbers. While if not counting, i usually get distracted BY thoughts and get like upto 10 breaths with zero distraction, completely in breathing.

Is counting itself a distraction? Is it better to be constantly distracted by numbers, or get more frequently distracted by thoughts and ideas without counting but getting less breaths, more distraction, but no counting?

I personally have an idea that its probably good especially if you're a beginner like me, but not sure.

Ty.

[Johnny Dangerous]

It’s a great technique for focus, as the counting engages the conceptual mind in counting instead of jumping around everywhere. Generally it’s a “beginning” technique but that doesn’t mean much, if it works for you it works.

[PadmaVonSamba]

Is it useful? It makes me able to be less distracted for meditation, but the counting itself could be a distraction, yes?

Yes, and yes.
I was taught to count 21 breaths and start over.
If you try to see how far you can count, then you might lose the important quality of meditation being ‘without a goal’ .

[DharmaJunior]

hmm, interesting I usually do just one, make the one last and the next one is also one.. so a constant returning not 2 or 3 or whatever. same thing.

[reiun]

It’s a great technique for focus, as the counting engages the conceptual mind in counting instead of jumping around everywhere. Generally it’s a “beginning” technique but that doesn’t mean much, if it works for you it works.

In fact, susokan is a profound method in zazen meditation in which samadhi is cultivated.

[Kim O'Hara]

It’s a great technique for focus, as the counting engages the conceptual mind in counting instead of jumping around everywhere. Generally it’s a “beginning” technique but that doesn’t mean much, if it works for you it works.

And because its primary purpose is to keep the conceptual mind occupied, the number of breaths counted (or how they are counted) makes very little difference. In my beginning meditation class I was taught to count 9 breaths and start over (and at first I could hardly get to 9 without being distracted ). In my yoga class, we are told to count 1-2-3-4-5 on the in-breath, 1-2-3 pausing with lungs full, 1-2-3-4-5 on the out-breath, 1-2-3 pausing with lungs empty ... and it works just as well.


Kim

[PadmaVonSamba]

hmm, interesting I usually do just one, make the one last and the next one is also one.. so a constant returning not 2 or 3 or whatever. same thing.

So, a person could just count “one…one…one…” over and over again?
Sounds good.
My Thai monk friend teaches to inhale “bu—” and exhale “—ddho”

[PadmaVonSamba]

Is counting itself a distraction?

There is a teaching by Mingyur Rinpoche, which I think is on YouTube, where he explains that all mind-focusing techniques are still distractions, but as he describes the mind using the old analogy of a monkey jumping around in a little house looking out all of the different windows (this represents the various sense organs) the breathing meditation gives the monkey one single thing to focus on.

So, it’s a single-one pointed distraction. With that, calming the mind and slipping into a deeper meditation state is then possible,

[Kim O'Hara]

hmm, interesting I usually do just one, make the one last and the next one is also one.. so a constant returning not 2 or 3 or whatever. same thing.

So, a person could just count “one…one…one…” over and over again?
Sounds good.

The only thing against it is that it may not be enough to keep the conceptual mind engaged. [/quote]

My Thai monk friend teaches to inhale “bu—” and exhale “—ddho”

That can also be thought of as mantra meditation. There's nothing at all wrong with that, of course, but it's not quite the same as occupying the monkey mind with a rather mechanical task.


Kim

[oryoki]

My Thai monk friend teaches to inhale “bu—” and exhale “—ddho”

This is from the book “Now is the Knowing” by Venerable Ajahn Sumedho pages 6,7:

<<<Many forest bhikkhus in the North-East of Thailand use the word ‘Buddho’as their meditation object. They use it as a kind of koan . Firstly, they calm the mind by following the inhalations and exhalations using the syllables BUD -DHO, and then begin to contemplate, ‘ What is Buddho, the ‘ one who knows ’ ? ’ ‘ What is the knowing? ’ When I used to travel around the North -East of Thailand on tudong I liked to go and stay at the monastery of Ajahn Fun. Ajahn Fun was a much -loved and deeply respected monk, the teacher of the Royal Family, and he was so popular that he was constantly receiving guests. I would sit at his kuti [hut] and hear him give the most amazing kind of Dhamma talks, all on the subject of ‘ Buddho ’— as far as I could see, it was all that he taught. He could make it into a really profound meditation, whether for an illiterate farmer or an elegant, western -educated Thai aristocrat. The main part of his teaching was to not just mechanically repeat ‘ Buddho ’ , but to reflect and investigate, to awaken the mind to really look into the ‘ Buddho ’ , ‘ the one who knows ’ really investigate its beginning, its end, above and below, so that one’s whole attention was stuck onto it. When one did that, ‘ Buddho ’ became something that echoed through the mind. One would investigate it, look at it, examine it before it was said and after it was said, and eventually one would start listening to it and hear beyond the sound, until one heard the silence.>>>

[narhwal90]

hmm, interesting I usually do just one, make the one last and the next one is also one.. so a constant returning not 2 or 3 or whatever. same thing.

So, a person could just count “one…one…one…” over and over again?
Sounds good.

The only thing against it is that it may not be enough to keep the conceptual mind engaged.

My Thai monk friend teaches to inhale “bu—” and exhale “—ddho”

That can also be thought of as mantra meditation. There's nothing at all wrong with that, of course, but it's not quite the same as occupying the monkey mind with a rather mechanical task.


Kim

The roshi recently proposed to me to start doing some breath counting during zazen, using the count in a mental audible sense, but reset to one when thoughts arise. The goal isn't to get to 10 as if in a race but to observe the frequency of thoughts arising. I find its a helpful method to observe when I'm forcing, grasping at thought.

[PadmaVonSamba]

My Thai monk friend teaches to inhale “bu—” and exhale “—ddho”

This is from the book “Now is the Knowing” by Venerable Ajahn Sumedho
<<<Many forest bhikkhus in the North-East of Thailand use the word ‘Buddho’as their meditation object.

That makes sense.
My friend is a forest-tradition monk.

[Aemilius]

There is also a teaching of counting breaths down to zero, starting from a large number like 500. It does make a difference, you can just try it.

[reiun]

"[This] practice of breath counting may have a different function: to actually point out our nature. For some students, susokukan is itself a perfectly sufficient method for passing through the gate of awakening. Entering deeply into the samadhi of this method by completely becoming the count with each breath, even the one that "becomes" ultimately drops away. There then arrives a moment in which the samadhi shatters, and coming out from that state, kensho is attained."

--Meido Moore: The Rinzai Zen Way: A Guide to Practice

[PadmaVonSamba]

I would like to add (although not about breaths, but about reducing distraction) is to take a moment to still your body.

We soon learn, when we begin siting, just how busy our minds are. But we don’t often realize how busy our bodies are, just in terms of the energy bouncing around in it. Even day to day, our bodies maintain a baseline of ‘holding’ tension (otherwise you’d walk around with your mouth wide open and you’d be peeing all the time).

If you find that your distractions are accompanied by a need for movement or fidgeting, always readjusting your posture and so on, then take a moment when you begin sitting, to just be as still as possible. Freeze up like a statue for a second and gently relax into your meditation posture.
This will also help you to focus on your breath and to be less distracted.

[pema tsultrim]

Alan Wallace teaches many different variations of counting breaths. They are featured prominently his book the Attention Revolution, and his other books and recorded teachings of course. If I recall correctly, in a teaching I was listening to in the last year, Alan says that one could take the method of counting breaths to stage 6 of shamatha.

[PadmaVonSamba]

I sometimes find it very useful to meditate on the word distraction .
‘Dis’ while inhaling, ‘traction’ while exhaling .
For some reason, this reduces actual distractions.

[kirtu]

Alan Wallace teaches many different variations of counting breaths. They are featured prominently his book the Attention Revolution, and his other books and recorded teachings of course. If I recall correctly, in a teaching I was listening to in the last year, Alan says that one could take the method of counting breaths to stage 6 of shamatha.

Not to rag on Wallace but I'm not sure why he limits counting breath meditation to stage 6 - he may mean something different than Pacified Attention (or he might mean that breath counting is too dualistic to really result in Fully Pacified Attention and above).

However Meido quoted by reiun is correct: breath counting can take people to actual samadhi (acknowledging that that quote itself implies dropping at least the distraction of counting itself).

I realize that the OP expressed concern that breath counting might itself be or become a distraction but it can definitely take you to a samadhi sufficient for oneself that they can then go beyond that or keep the practice without distraction.

[pema tsultrim]

Heart, yes I believe that was the implication of Alan’s statement. Like I said, it was my recollection that Alan said you could take it to stage 6. He might have said, “you can definitely take it to stage 6.” He might have said, “You can take it at least to stage 6.” He might have said, you can take it as far as stage 6.” Or he might have said, but I don’t think so, “You can only take it as far as stage 6.” Little words can make a big distance. But, at some point from stage 6 or higher, the counting itself would have to be dropped in the 9 stage model, no?

[Queequeg]

Six Dharma Gates to the Sublime

https://www.kalavinka.org/kp_book_pages ... k_page.htm

Excellent little manual on how to meditate, starting with breath counting.