Breathe experiencing joy and happiness

Let the pleasant feelings that arise in a settled sitting become part of what you know with each breath, rather than a distraction from it.

Pourquoi ça marche

The second group of steps opens with breathing “experiencing rapture” (pīti) and “experiencing bliss” (sukha). MN 118 places these under contemplation of feeling, so the instruction is to know the pleasant feeling as it is while the breath continues. The discourse’s later section describes rapture leading to tranquillity and tranquillity to a settled, gathered mind — the tradition’s claim that a mind enjoying its object stays with it more easily than a mind held there by effort.

Comment faire

1. Once the body has settled, notice whether any pleasantness is present — ease, warmth, lightness, gladness.
2. Without chasing it, let that pleasant feeling be known along with the breath, in and out.
3. If nothing pleasant is present, notice the simple ease of not needing to do anything, and let that be enough.
4. If joy becomes strong or excited, keep breathing with it and notice how it softens into a quieter happiness.

Données probantes

Steps five and six are in MN 118, and the sequence from rapture to tranquillity to concentration is set out in the same discourse. Anālayo’s practice guide treats these steps as part of a progressive practice. Support is textual and practitioner-based. (anecdotal)

There is no controlled research on this step. Teachers differ on how strong the joy in these steps is meant to be — some link it to deep absorption states, others to ordinary gladness.

Sources

• Sujato, B. (trans.). Mindfulness of Breathing (Ānāpānassatisutta, Majjhima Nikāya 118). SuttaCentral.
• Anālayo, B. (2019). Mindfulness of Breathing: A Practice Guide and Translations. Cambridge: Windhorse Publications.

Erreur fréquente

Either pushing pleasant feelings away as a distraction, or grasping at them and trying to get them back next time — the step asks you to know them, breathing in and out, without doing either.