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What puzzles me about counting the breaths

Posted June 28th, 2010 by Kim Lowles
In Reference to:
Thoughts on Thoughts

It is interesting that counting the breaths seems to be a widespread idea of how to reach stillness, silence, God. It puzzles me that filling the mind with counting can be equal to emptying the mind. How can we reach silence if we are counting? How can we hear God if we are counting?

If someone could explain this it would help me a lot.

 

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I'm With You Kim

Posted June 30th, 2010 by Jennifer Grove

It doesn't make any sense to me and none of these explanations - nor any number of other explanations that I've ever heard - help me at all. 

There is prolly something about my mind that is doing something different than what normal people's minds do and so there is something lost in the translation. This happens to me alot. 

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Isn't the mind what got us into trouble?

Posted June 30th, 2010 by kbd2005

In the first place?  So why not puzzle it?  Is meditation supposed to be an explainable process?  If it was, what would be the point?  It would just be another game for the ego.

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counting on Kim

Posted June 28th, 2010 by Kerry Dugan

"Counting the breath" is a shorthand cliché for a contextual skillful means. To say that meditation is about counting breaths is like saying that sports are about lacing up in the locker room.

Developing concentration (whether by the process of proceeding from counting breaths to following the breath to being the breath, or any other means of taking those steps) is the beginning of being able to apply that skill, that focus, to questions of our own ultimate concern(s). 

The instruction sometimes goes: As you begin to count breaths, from one to ten, make the agreement with yourself that, when a thought arises, or your mind wonders, you return to one. For most people, if we're honest with ourselves, we notice that it takes a while to get passed one.
 
Simple: not easy.