This program will explore the practice and study of ānāpānasati, the Buddha’s sixteen step-by-step instructions on Mindfulness with Breathing. Mindfulness with breathing is considered to be one of the most important meditation subjects in the Nikāyas — it is a profound and versatile practice that frees the mind from hindrances, cultivates clarity, joy, and concentration, produces insight into impermanence, and leads directly to the realization of nibbana. 

Our study will focus on the Ānāpānasati Sutta (MN 118). We will read it along with several additional discourses found in the Ānāpānasati Saṃyutta (SN 54) and the Middle Length Discourses to expand our understanding of the purposes for undertaking mindfulness with breathing, and the contexts in which the Buddha taught this comprehensive meditative training. 

We will apply the sixteen steps as a systematic meditative training, and also discuss ways that several modern meditation teachers have interpreted this practice.