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.
Why it works
Steps three and four ask the meditator to breathe “experiencing the whole body” and then “stilling the physical process” — the bodily formation (kāya-saṅkhāra), which MN 44 defines as the in-and-out breath itself. The commentarial tradition reads “whole body” as the whole length of the breath; Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu argues in his notes that it means the whole physical body. Either way, the breath is not forced slower: calming is allowed to happen as attention steadies, and research on slow breathing suggests why that tends to settle the body when it does.
How to do it
- After a few minutes of knowing long and short breaths, let awareness widen to include the whole body as it breathes.
- Notice where the breath moves the body — belly, ribs, shoulders, the subtle movement elsewhere.
- With each out-breath, let any effort or holding in the body ease a little, without pushing the breath to change.
- If the breath becomes very quiet and fine, let it; stay with the whole body rather than hunting for the breath.
Evidence
The two steps are in MN 118, and MN 44 defines breathing as the “physical process.” Zaccaro and colleagues’ systematic review found that slow breathing techniques are associated with increased heart rate variability and parasympathetic activity and with greater relaxation and comfort — the most plausible physiological account of why a calmer breath settles the body. (mechanistic)
Zaccaro’s review pooled fifteen studies of deliberately slowed breathing (under ten breaths a minute) in healthy people — it is about slow breathing in general, not anapanasati, which does not instruct you to slow the breath; whether a breath that calms on its own produces the same changes has not been tested. The reading of “whole body” is genuinely contested between the commentaries and modern translators.
Sources
- Sujato, B. (trans.). Mindfulness of Breathing (Ānāpānassatisutta, Majjhima Nikāya 118). SuttaCentral.
- Sujato, B. (trans.). The Shorter Elaboration (Cūḷavedallasutta, Majjhima Nikāya 44). SuttaCentral.
- Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu (trans.). Mindfulness of Breathing (Ānāpānasati Sutta, MN 118), with notes. dhammatalks.org.
- Zaccaro, A., Piarulli, A., Laurino, M., Garbella, E., Menicucci, D., Neri, B., & Gemignani, A. (2018). How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12, 353. About this work
Common mistake
Treating “calming the bodily formation” as an order to breathe slowly — forcing a slow breath often adds strain, which is the opposite of what the step describes.
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.
- 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.
- 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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