An Overview of Meditation Technique: Breathing Exercise

Meditation techniques are essential to guide the mind to focus properly, especially in this fragmented world that is full of attraction and distraction.

However, meditation is not a technique. It is very easy to misunderstand meditation technique as something separate, especially in this internet age full of commercials that are selling "meditation techniques" in all kinds of products; this mechanical way of (mis)understanding leads to the mechanical way of using the technique, which becomes a trap and reduces meditation to some techniques as is happening now.

The technique can be diverse, but the mere focus on the technique is not the right focus, which only leads to more confusion. The mind is seeking a goal from the meditation technique – to be calm or healed or some unique experiences, and actually the mind is achieving this via dulling itself, which is in opposition to the essence of true meditation – freedom and aliveness.

The meditation technique can only be used properly by one who is serious in inquiring into oneself and eager to understand this world completely. With such a quality of mind, one could make sense of any technique.

In this article, only breath exercise is introduced, but one can explore and discover different techniques. Again, don't overfocus on the techniques, what matters is observing oneself completely, not playing tricks.

Via breathing meditation or diverse meditation techniques, one is experiencing the full attention – the mind is observing without divided attention so that it observes everything totally: body sensation and the movement of thoughts. Via full attention, the mind can capture the subtle difference created by the thoughts and sensations, gaining instant insight into the mind itself.

In the exercise or beyond the exercise, one could observe one's daily mental habits and issues repeated in the breathing exercise, that's, one is gaining insight into oneself.

With instant insight, at each moment of living, the mind is fully aware of the mental patterns, so the mind is free of all the issues. Meditation is never divorced from daily living.