A review of TNH's Breathe! You Are Alive: Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing

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Dharmasherab
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A review of TNH's Breathe! You Are Alive: Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing

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This is a review by Goodreads user Wt on Thich Nhat Hanh's book Breathe! You Are Alive: Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing.

Here is the link on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/698684882
Though written by a Buddhist monk, this presentation on Buddhist breath-meditation has a very syncretic approach which echoes general new-age concepts of healing, nature and planetary consciousness, and even modern Taoist internal alchemy practices such as the Inner Smile meditation on the organs (as taught by eg. Mantak Chia). With its emphasis on healing and self-care, nature consciousness and inter-being, this appears to be a book written to appeal widely to a general (Western) readership whose spiritual orientation has been consciously or unconsciously shaped by new age movements now so much a part of popular culture. As an exposition of the Buddha-dhamma according to the doctrine and discipline of Buddhism itself however, especially with regards to early Buddhism, this book can at times fall a little short.

Thich Nhat Hanh re-inscribes Buddhist dhamma with new meanings that it did not originally have, meanings that are derived from modern-day consciousness and concerns with health, healing, nature, planet, ecology and so on. Such re-inscription is not necessarily undesirable, but if the newly-inscribed meanings write out, confuse or obscure the original meaning and message of the Buddha-dhamma, then one is running the risk of teaching something in which the original soteriological meanings to do with insight and liberation have been lost. Witness instructions such as these given by Thich Nhat Hanh on page 73: "Going home mindfully, we can talk to our wounded child within using the following mantra: "Darling, I have come home to you. I am here for you. I embrace you in my arms. I am sorry that I left you alone for a long time." These instructions could have come straight out of the pages of a new-age self-help book, but they bear very little resemblance to traditional Buddhist meditation instructions, esp. those that focus on such objects as the foulness of the body and the stages of decomposition of the corpse. Presenting the Anapanasati Sutta through a syncretic lens might give it a wider appeal, but at the cost of original Buddhist insights into the nature of life, insights that have the power to liberate. It appears to me that the Buddha did not really teach people to "embrace our pain and sorrow" like a new age guru, he taught something much more profound, which is to see that pain and sorrow is caused by our own ignorant grasping at objects thinking they will give happiness and satisfaction, when in fact they are impermanent, dis-satisfactory and not-self. I wonder if Thich Nhat Hahn's feel-good meditation instructions are likely to to lead to the knowledge of disgust or aversion (nibbidaupasanna-nana) to, dispassion towards and giving up on sensory and phenomenal experience, likely to lead to the realization of Nibbana therefore?

On page 11, there is a mistake in the translation of the Pali Anapanasati Sutta where the once-returner is described as having "cut off the roots of greed, hatred and ignorance." In fact, this is only true of the Arahant, as the once-returner merely reduces or attenuates the roots of greed, hatred and ignorance instead of cutting them off or destroying them. Thankfully, this mistake is not repeated in the translation of the Anapanasmriti Sutra in the Chinese Agamas which is given in Appendix One, and there the stages of enlightenment are correctly described. In Appendix Two, which gives the author's personal points of view, I find points for disagreement. Specifically, Thich Nhat Hanh refers to the jhanas noting that they are not mentioned in the Anapanasati Sutta and MahaSatipathana Sutta, and therefore concludes that the numerous suttas that mention the jhanas are later additions to the canon and the jhanas are entirely dispensable for practice and realization. The author might have latched on to the wrong end of the stick however, as scholars who have studied the early Buddhist canon have found that the Mahasatipathana appears to be a later sutta, and that the jhanas are implied in the Anapanasati Sutta (see for example Dr Tse-fu Kuan's "Mindfulness in Early Buddhism"). In fact, there are so many suttas referring to the importance of jhana in the sutta pitaka (e.g. around 100 references in the Majjhima Nikaya alone) that it seems rather hasty to dismiss all of them as later additions that were somehow put in there by Yoga-Upanishadic inspired authors, as Thich Nhat Hanh does.

Thich Nhat Hanh not only considers the jhanas dispensable, he also gives a mundane reading of the second tetrad which is concerned with the jhana factors of Piti (rapture) which he translates as joy, and Sukkha which he translates as happiness. His way of cultivating piti and sukkha is a simple form of yoniso manasikara or wise reflection, such as reflecting on the fact that one has two good eyes, or that one's liver is working well, or that one has a sangha to practice with. Reflections like these are indeed very important ways of cultivating wholesome states of mind giving rise to mental contentment, joy and happiness, and this is a technique that is central in Mahayana mind-training (e.g. Tibetan Lojong), but which has been under-stressed by teachers of meditation in the Theravada tradition. Note, however, that there is the joy and happiness acquired through these reflective means, and then there is the rapture and tranquillity that arises as a direct result of deep states of mindful concentration on the breath, when the mind stops engaging in discursive thought and turns its attention away from sensory input. The former and the latter are on entirely different levels of experience, for the former is a mundane kind of joy and happiness, whereas the rapture and tranquillity that arise as jhana factors in deep states of meditation, and which function as factors of enlightenment, approach and lead to the supramundane (lokuttara) realms. To give rise to stronger or more-refined levels of piti and sukkha, something other than wise reflection is needed, but Thich Nhat Hanh does not lead readers there.

This book should serve best as an accessible introductory guide for those who are new to Anapanasati meditation, appealing especially to non-Buddhists who want a more general take on Buddhist breath meditation, and also for people who want a less intensive way of practice that is do-able in everyday life rather than on retreat. Such readers would want to rate this book higher, but as an exposition of the Buddha-dhamma qua buddha-dhamma, I would give it only 3 stars. This is not a book for purists, and the experienced meditator and the student of early Buddhism might find little here to illuminate or inspire one along the lines of the doctrine and the discipline of early Buddhism. It does however provide a comparative perspective on the Pali and Chinese versions of the Anapanasati sutta. Though the comparison is very general and not exactly grounded in good historiography, the attempt to compare versions of the sutta is something one can learn from.
- Wt
“When one does not understand death, life can be very confusing.” - Ajahn Chah
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