Beginning Concentration

　　When we practice breath meditation, we”ve been given methods for warding off the various Hindrances that will destroy the good results of what we”re doing. We”re told to focus on the in-and-out breath and to keep mindfulness in charge, together with the meditation word, buddho, buddho, in and out with the breath. If you want just to think buddho, you can, but it”s too light. Your awareness won”t go deep. It”s the nature of shallow things that dust and dirt can blow in easily and fill them up quickly. As for deep things, dust and dirt can”t easily blow in. In the same way, when the mind is deep, it isn”t easily affected by preoccupations.

　　So when you simply focus on buddho, buddho, it doesn”t carry much weight. It”s like taking a knife and slicing away at the air. You don”t feel much of anything because there”s nothing for the knife to strike against. But if you take the same knife and use it to slice away at a stump or any other object, you”ll feel that your hand has more weight and your arm gains strength, able to ward off any enemies that may threaten you.

　　This is why we”re taught to focus on a single spot so that the mind will gain strength, solid and steady in a single preoccupation. Take as your target any of the meditation objects in the basic list of forty. Your mind will gain strength; your mindfulness will mature into Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.

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　　Buddho is the meditation word. Being mindful and alert to the in-and-out breath is the actual meditation. Once the mind is in place you can let go of your meditation word. The meditation word is like bait. For example, if we want a chicken to come our way, we scatter rice on the ground. Once the chicken comes for the rice, we don”t have to scatter any more.

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　　Being mindful, remembering to stay with the breath, is one thing. Alertness — examining the breath sensations that flow throughout the entire body, knowing whether the breath feels constricted or broad, shallow or deep, heavy or light, fast or slow — is something else. Together they form the component factors of meditation.

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　　The in-and-out breath is like the wick of a candle or a lantern. Focusing mindfulness on the breath is like lighting the wick so that it gives off light. A single candle, if its wick is lit, can burn down an entire city. In the same way, mindfulness can destroy all the bad things within us: defilement, unawareness, craving, and attachment. Mindfulness is the consuming fire of the practice.

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　　Being mindful of the breath is like casting a Buddha image inside yourself. Your body is like the furnace, mindfulness is like the mold. If mindfulness lapses, the bronze will leak out of the mold and your Buddha image will be ruined.

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　　Letting mindfulness lapse is like getting a hole in your clothes. Letting it lapse again is like getting a second hole. If you keep letting it lapse, it”s like getting a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth hole in your clothes until ultimately you can”t wear them.

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　　There are three ways in which mindfulness lapses. The first is by bringing inside things out to think about. In other words, you grab hold of any lights or visions that may appear, and in this way your path washes out. The second way is by bringing outside things in to think about, i.e., abandoning your meditation object. The third way is by losing consciousness. You sit there, but it”s as if you were asleep. All of these things are called a washed-out path, like a road that washes out and is full of deep potholes.

　　To keep preoccupations out of the mind is to cut a path in the mind. To let outside preoccupations in is to let the path wash out. When the path washes out, there”s no way that insight or discernment will arise, just as when a road washes out, no cars …

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