Pondera wrote:Well the four foundations of mindfulness are explicitly indicated in the full description of the in and out breathing meditation, but I admit that each is a separate object of meditation in and of itself. Still, regardless of what you direct your contemplation towards, breathing will not only accompany that thing (whether it is the body, the mind, feelings, or dhamma); breathing will also condition that thing.
Yes of course, breathing is involved in everything we do, that's one of the reasons it's by far the most popular introductory Buddhist meditation techniques, however the Buddha listed many more subjects of meditation which to me is evidence that it's the effect on the mind that's important not the technique itself.
The two most popular Theravadin meditation traditions today, Mahasi Sayadaw and U Ba Khin, both do not use meditation on the breath as the main thing. The former uses it as an anchor to help establish concentration and return to when one gets lost with noting practise, the latter to help establish concentration and an awareness of bodily sensation before moving on to the main thing.
Pondera wrote:Of course it's insight! The passage doesn't stop at calming the mind. The passage stops when Nirvana is reached! That's insight.
Yes you're right the sutta moves on to talk about insight. The word translated as calming is passadhi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passaddhi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and calming is part of the process but I'm not sure that relaxation is a good translation, also I think it's quite a stretch to contend that there is a causal relationship between relaxation and insight, one can gain a lot of insight when clearly observing tension, but I do think that insight in turn leads to more calming.
Pondera wrote:Well, you don't necessarily have to calm the body in order to achieve insight into reality. It's a good idea to. Recall Sariputta in the sutta "One After the Other".
See, we agree.
Pondera wrote:Well, my point of view is that the awareness cart should follow behind the breathing horse, and this seems right to me. But I don't think we'll get anywhere arguing about it because both of us are probably convinced we're right. So maybe a vote or tally of opinions might settle that. But we won't be able to between the two of us.
That could only be true if the breath were the only meditation object, and as I've pointed out this is clearly not the case.
Over the past few years I've been attending quite a few retreats where the breath is not used as an object at all, listening to the questions of meditators I've noticed something a bit disturbing. It's quite common to get questions about the breath even though none of the instructions have encouraged it's use as an object like people haven't been listening, it's also quite common for people who do realise they need to change meditation object to find they struggle to do so. So breath meditation has become an habitual rut one can't let go of rather than a tool to enhance awareness.
You appear to be heading down this path, which is probably fine if you are interested in relaxation and/or jhana, but not if you're interested in insight.
Pondera wrote:You know, I slipped into Neither Perception nor Non-Perception and I recall that there was one distinct breath which separated that last bit of consciousness my Mind was holding onto and then total blank awareness. When Perception and Feeling ceased, I don't recall whether I breathed or not. But it was very much, even at a stage of progression like the eighth jhana still a question of "how can I use my breath and my knowledge to attain insight and liberation." So...
Yes, and all this happened in the mind not the breath, the breath was just a tool to hold onto and help you get there, once you've crossed the river time to let go of the raft.