Comments on “What did the Buddha have to say about Hara Breathing?”
One of the things we had hoped for when we recently redesigned this blog was that the new format would encourage readers to send us comments about the posts. It seems to be working because we received several thoughtful replies to the last post, "What did the Buddha have to say about Hara Breathing?" I want to take this opportunity to respond to one of them.
The reader wrote:
I read a book by author and monk Bhikkhu Analayo titled "Mindfulness of Breathing," and in Chapter Two, he discusses possible meanings behind the Anapanasati. I believe Bhikkhu Analayo is a subject matter expert that can help narrow your search. He also uses other texts from the Pali canon to help support his claims.
I hadn't heard of the book or Bikkhu Analayo before. A quick search showed that he is a German-born monk and teacher of Theravadan Buddhism, a pre-Mahayana tradition based in Sri Lanka. He's also a scholar; he wrote his Ph.D. on the Satipatthana Sutta (Sutta is the Pali word for sutra). I mentioned that sutra in my previous post; it contains much the same breathing instructions as the Anapanasati. So, our reader is undoubtedly correct that Bikkhu Analayo is an authority on the Buddha's discourses on breathing.
I was impressed by the book. It's clearly written and gives clear instructions. However, I found only two references to the abdomen in it. Both (and one is a citation in a footnote) describe the abdomen as one of many body parts to pay attention to while breathing. In short, I found no instructions for anything that I'd call hara breathing. Its teachings are consistent with those I described when discussing the Anapanasati Sutta in my previous post. He presents an alternative description of one of the many techniques in the sutta as involving intentionally taking long breaths and observing how they naturally lead to shorter breaths. But the main thrust of the sutta is that breath is observed rather than manipulated.
The book reminded me of two of others I have read recently. The first is Breathe, You Are Alive: The Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing, by Thich Nhat Hanh. Much of the book consists of his translation of the Anapanasati Sutta (which I used in my last post). However, he also explains the text and describes exercises based on it. But, at no point does he mention the abdomen or manipulating (as opposed to observing) the breath.
The second book is Breathing Through the Whole Body: Buddha's Instructions on Integrating Mind, Body and Breath, by Will Johnson. As is evident from the title, Johnson describes the Buddha's teachings on breathing. He draws on the Anapanasati, the Satipatthana, and a third sutta I haven't mentioned before, the Kayagatasati. He describes these as comprising the Buddha's "actual" words on breathing, and he describes the three texts as being "fundamentally identical" in this regard. As in the other two books, these instructions involve observing the breath. The author provides a great deal of elaboration and extension on the Buddha's instructions. At one point, he mentions that some Chinese and Japanese schools of Buddhism "[insist} on dropping one's mind into the tan tien [tanden in Japanese] or the hara, which is located in the lower belly." The context makes clear that these instructions didn't come from the Buddha but are found in later Buddhist practices.
I found all three books interesting, and I'd recommend them to anyone interested in the role of breathing in meditation, especially as they pertain to Vipassana or mindfulness-based practice. They do not, however, describe hara breathing. The three books reinforced my opinion that the historical Buddha didn't teach hara breathing, that hara breathing was introduced to Buddhist practice considerably after his death, and that its origins may not have been in India. I plan to delve into these topics more in the future.
In the meantime, please consider sending in a comment if you know otherwise. We'd like to keep the dialogue going.
Ken Kushner