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.
Why it works
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.
How to do it
- Once the body has settled, notice whether any pleasantness is present — ease, warmth, lightness, gladness.
- Without chasing it, let that pleasant feeling be known along with the breath, in and out.
- If nothing pleasant is present, notice the simple ease of not needing to do anything, and let that be enough.
- If joy becomes strong or excited, keep breathing with it and notice how it softens into a quieter happiness.
Evidence
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.
Common mistake
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.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Ānāpānasati: The Sixteen Steps of Mindfulness of Breathing
- Know each breath as long or short
Begin by simply knowing whether this in-breath and this out-breath are long or short, without making them any particular way.
- Experience the whole body and let the breath calm it
Widen attention from the breath alone to the whole body breathing, and let the bodily activity of breathing settle on its own.
- Know and calm the mental formations
Notice how feeling and perception are colouring this moment, and let that activity settle while you breathe.
- Experience, gladden, steady and free the mind
With the breath still present, know the state of the mind, brighten it when it is dull, steady it when it scatters, and release it when it is caught.
- Breathe contemplating impermanence and letting go
Let each breath show you that experience is changing, and let that seeing turn into fading interest, ending and release.
- Move through the sixteen steps as one practice
Let a single sitting travel through body, feeling, mind and letting go, taking each group of four only as far as it is actually alive.
- Notice how breath practice builds the factors of awakening
Recognise mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, tranquillity, concentration and equanimity as they develop out of the practice.
- Know what to do when focusing on the breath feels wrong
Recognise that breath attention can make some people more tense or uneasy — and adjust the practice rather than forcing it.
Related concepts
- Satipaṭṭhāna: The Four Foundations of Mindfulness
The discourse that modern mindfulness grew from, practised the way the text lays it out
- Vipassana Meditation, Made Practical
Insight, equanimity, and the body-scan approach to liberation from reactivity
- Shamatha: The Buddhist Practice of Calm Abiding
Training the mind to rest: the nine stages and their modern neurological parallels
- Breath Counting Meditation
The count, the restart, and why simplicity is a feature, not a limitation
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