Mindfulness of Breathing with Bhikkhu Anālayo

Bhikkhu Anālayo’s genius is, in part, to [analyze] the terse, sometimes obscure language of the Buddha’s discourses and reveal them as fresh, practical guidance for contemporary meditators.

-Guy Armstrong

Mindfulness of Breathing meditation builds on the foundation established with Satipaṭṭhāna meditation. Using the Anapanasati-sutta, the “Discourse on Mindfulness of Breathing In and Breathing Out,” as the primary source text, Bhikkhu Anālayo offers guided instructions presented in his text – Mindfulness of Breathing: A Practice Guide and Translations (Windhorse Publications, 2019). 

In this freely offered series of six audio meditations, Bhikkhu Anālayo provides sequential guided instructions for mindfulness of breathing. Instructions begin with the development of the preliminaries, progressing through the scheme of the sixteen steps, culminating with contemplation of the awakening factors.

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We are privileged to have such a voice on the planet at a time like this, a voice that is both precise and compassionate. I would say that Anālayo’s precision is itself a form of compassion, as are his flexibility and fluidity in inviting an easy approach to these instructions. It is more an exploration of wisdom within the timeless present moment than it is a narrow, inflexible prescription for enlightenment, even as it points precisely to that extinguishing. Following…the thread of the breath, the thread of these step-by-step teachings, can be profoundly healing and illuminating, and above all, liberating.

-Jon Kabat-Zinn, foreword to Mindfulness of Breathing: A Practice Guide and Translations (Anālayo, 2019)

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