..续本文上一页omfortable as possible. If you feel any blockage or obstruction in the breathing, see what you can do to dissolve those feelings. Are you doing anything to create them

　　 If you can catch yourself creating them, then it”s easy to let them dissolve. And what would make you create them aside from your preconceived notions of how the mechanics of breathing have to work

　　 So question those notions: Where does the breath come into the body

　　 Does it come in only through the nose and mouth

　　 Does the body have to pull the breath in

　　 If so, which sensations do the pulling

　　 Which sensations get pulled

　　 Where does the pulling begin

　　 And where is the breath pulled from

　　 Which parts have the breath, and which ones don”t

　　 When you feel a sensation of blockage, which side of the sensation are you on

　　These questions may sound strange, but many times your pre-verbal assumptions about the body are strange as well. Only when you confront them head-on with strange questions can you bring them to light. And only when you see them clearly can you replace them with alternative concepts.

　　So once you catch yourself breathing uncomfortably in line with a particular assumption, turn it around to see what sensations the new assumption highlights. Try staying with those sensations as long as you can, to test them. If, compared to your earlier sensations associated with the breath, they”re easier to stay with, if they provide a more solid and spacious grounding for concentration, the assumption that drew them to your attention is a useful new tool in your meditation. If the new sensations aren”t helpful in that way, you can throw the new tool aside.

　　For example, if you have a sense of being on one side of a blockage, try thinking of being on the other side. Try being on both. Think of the breath as coming into the body, not through the nose or mouth, but through the middle of the chest, the back of the neck, every pore of your skin, any spot that helps reduce the felt need to push and pull.

　　Or start questioning the need to push and pull at all. Do you feel that your immediate experience of the body is of the solid parts, and that they have to manage the mechanics of breathing, which is secondary

　　 What happens if you conceive your immediate experience of the body in a different way, as a field of primary breath energy, with the solidity simply a label attached to certain aspects of the breath

　　 Whatever you experience as a primary body sensation, think of it as already breath, without your having to do anything more to it. How does that affect the level of stress and strain in the breathing

　　And what about the act of staying focused

　　 How do you conceive that

　　 Is it behind the breath

　　 Surrounded by breath

　　 To what extent does your mental picture of focusing help or hinder the ease and solidity of your concentration

　　 For instance, you may find that you think of the mind as being in one part of the body and not in others. What do you do when you focus attention on another part

　　 Does the mind leave its home base -- say, in the head -- to go there, or does the other part have to be brought into the head

　　 What kind of tension does this create

　　 What happens if you think of awareness already being in that other part

　　 What happens when you turn things around entirely: instead of the mind”s being in the body, see what stress is eliminated when you think of the body as surrounded by a pre-existing field of awareness.

　　When you ask questions like this and gain favorable results, the mind can settle down into deeper and deeper levels of solidity. You eliminate unnecessary tension and stress in your focus, finding ways of feeling more and more at home, at ease, in the experience of the present.

　　Once the mind is settled down, give it time to stay there. Don”t be in …

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