1989-04_13 Anapanasati_ Full Awareness of Breath Series - Tape 9 Q&A 4

Talk: 19890413-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-anapanasati_full_awareness_of_breath_series_tape_9-33812 Start_time: 00:29:11 Display_question: How can I discover why my inbreath is more discernable than my outbreath? Keyword_search: inbreath, outbreath, obstacle, breath, breathing, Thailand, Burma, Westerner, subtle anxiety, apprehension, fear, comfortable, absorption, practice, nourishment, nervousness, samadhi, flow, freely, inequality, equality, nostril, discern, think, question, die, sentinel, attention Question_content: Larry: The other, again, other issues that maybe you can answer, or tonight we'll have another sitting and give you a chance to look at it. Problems come up, obstacles to absorption. What we're doing now is an absorption practice. We're becoming absorbed in the breathing. That is all the disparate energies of the mind are being encouraged to converge around one object: the inbreath and the outbreath so that energy becomes unified. That's what we're attempting to do. Now, in the process of watching the inbreath and the outbreath, in general, whether it's very closely at the nostrils or let's say tracking or whatever it is, sometimes there are problems where there isn't an even attention to the inbreath and the outbreath. That is, sometimes there'll be anxiety people will be very alert on the outbreath and then there'll be anxiety about whether an inbreath is going to come. Has anyone ever had that? Break_line: Maybe this only happens to Thai and Burmese people, I don't know. The outbreath is alert. You're alert on the outbreath, but you lose it on the in breath, you tend to more often than on the outbreath because there's some concern about whether the breath is going to come in, the in breath is going to come in, or it's a concern about nourishment often, I found, and it does happen to Westerners. I'm just kidding. And there's a real concern about when the breath is going to come in. You know it's going to come in, but there's an anxiety in the waiting. It can be very subtle, and if so, it's going to throw off the samadhi practice or you're concerned about it coming in, but it doesn't come in quite as comfortably as the breath goes out or the other way around. The breath is very comfortable, and you just love the inbreath and the outbreath is not quite as comfortable, you're not sure it's going to happen, you don't know when it's going to happen. There's a little bit of nervousness waiting for it to happen. Break_line: Sometimes people are afraid of letting go systematically have problems with the outbreath. Sometimes people who are—I'm generalizing here, it's more poetic, intuitive, so take it on that level, which is not to say it's not true, has no truth status. Some people who seem to have some apprehension about living fully, there's more complications about the inbreath. Or for some problem about having to do with the structure of the nose or the condition of your health, that the in breath is more comfortable and flows more freely and so the person will be more attentive on the inbreath and then not so much on the outbreath. So, it's one at the expense of the other. Or anxiety or one becomes very fine and another not and so you have problems with one or the other. And so it's important to see that. In other words, inequality, there should be an evenness of attention so that we're exactly with the inbreath and we're exactly with the outbreath. Break_line: Now often if there is a problem here you can come back to the original setting up of the practice. That is, have you really found is the discernment been done properly? Have you really found that place where the breath is touching the nostrils or the upper lip so that you're confident that this is a good place to set up attentiveness? Sometimes we're a little casual about that, or we don't hear the instructions fully, or we don't put it into action. We're a little bit all over the place, even within the small region. Or, we neglect really staying there. We found where we should be, where to station ourselves, but we're not really doing it. Break_line: Has anyone noticed any differences between the inbreath and the outbreath for yourself? Okay, we'll have a sitting tonight. You have? Questioner: Mhm. Larry: What have you seen? It can be any sitting that you remember. Questioner: It's pretty consistent. It's most sitting. There's also differences. Sometimes it's mostly the right nostril or mostly the left nostril. Probably has to do with where mucus membranes are doing their work. But consistently, the inbreath is more discernable than the outbreath. Larry: Do you know why? Questioner: No. Larry: Find out. Find out. Questioner: What questions can I ask myself in order to…? Larry: No questions. No questions. It's now on the agenda, your agenda. Just really pay attention. Just pay attention. Don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. No, that will just undermine the whole practice. No, just pay attention. But even if, it's not that you have to have a reason, just that you know it. Now as you begin to see it in the watching, you may find that it'll start to even itself out. Again, I don't know. You'll have to find out. Again, it could be… Okay. I'd rather not speculate. I'd rather you find it out for yourself. Questioner: It rang a bell when you said that maybe the discernment was not done as carefully as it should have been. I had a lot of trouble, and I don't feel entirely confident that I know just where I should wait, where I should situate my attention. Larry: Okay. Again. Okay, again. Let's not get fanatical because every breath is slightly different than the breath before. It's, by and large, where the sensations seem to be touching. And we just station our attention there and we're just there. And then the saw goes over that area. Questioner: The problem is the outbreath. I don't know whether maybe the appropriate term is that it's very fine. I don't know. Larry: Yes. Questioner: But it just seems as if sometimes, no matter where my attention is, it's right where I felt the outbreath before and it's right where I felt the inbreath. But I just don't feel anything. Larry: It's okay. In other words, that's why, in this small area, it's sometimes called guarding the breath. So that means it's like a sentinel. You're on duty there, so you're there whether you feel the breath or you don't feel the breath. You don't have to worry. Relax. It's soft. It's open. It's not tense. You know like <panting>. It's not that way. I mean, you wouldn't last half an hour with this. So, it's very, very open. And you're just learning how to just settle. Settle in that place. And the breath comes in, the breath goes out, and sometimes a very long pause. Fine. You're right there. And as I say, you may reach a point where it feels like you're absolutely certain you're not breathing at all. Break_line: Okay. Some of this is just to prepare us a little bit, and if it happens so you'll know about it and not make it into more of a problem than it needs to be. You probably remember that you're not going to die. End_time: 00:36:19