Samatha vs Vipassana Breathing Attention

I am confused as to the different techniques for watching the breath in samatha and vipassana. I generally pay attention to the sensations of breath around my nostrils (occasionally switching to the abdomen) and I _thought_ I was doing samatha. But based on recent discussions and readings it some seems like this is vipassana because I watch the sensations themselves. Is this correct? Also, I've come to understand that samatha breath watching is described as attending to the breath "as a whole" (rather than the sensations). I'm not sure what this really means. Any advice?

aac

Vipassana -- watch closely, investigate what's going on with the breath. Are there sensations? What are they? Where are they? Are there mental images? What a re they? What happens in your stream of experience. second by second, as you watch the breath? Be like a cat watching a mouse hole. Ever observant and attentive.

Samatha -- ease into the breath. Don't investigate it, just get into the flow, the rhythm and the groove of participating in breathing, being a breathing entity. Try to stay lightly focused on the breath sensations as they occur, but pay no particular attention to any one sensation. Rather, try to get a feel for the entirety of the experience of breathing, all at once.

Helpful?

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Helpful?

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Yes, thank you. Still, I find these poetic descriptions harder to "operationalize" more so than the straightforward instructions to focus on sensations. This is NOT a criticism, just a description of my inexperience. But I'll work on it.

aac

Recently I've found myself sitting without an intentional game plan. A sitting will, I think, wander between V & S. I've been interested to see what will happen. Any considerations with that approach?

You've probably read before that ALL meditations have aspects of shamatha and vipashyana in them. Shamatha is the stability aspect, and vipashyana is the clarity aspect. The shamatha aspect is arrived at by resting, and the vipashyana one by investigating.

One way I like to think of it is: to what extent is my curiosity piqued? Sometimes while watching the breath, my intention is to "figure out" (not intellectually, but by penetrating experientially) what is going on. Other times (not so often these days), it's simply to rest the mind. I don't want to know or understand anything.

To the extent you're emphasizing stability, it's more shamatha-oriented, and the more you're curious about the nature of your experience, it's more vipashyana-oriented. But both aspects are always there, and both typically grow with time.

Yeah, that's cool. Good description of how it's seeming to me.

It has helped me to conceive this as a continuum between focus on continuity (samatha) versus focus on moment-to-moment difference (vipassana).

Probably coming out of my Goenka background, I spent several years more naturally inclined towards the latter, breaking things down into moment-to-moment changing sensations. If observing the breath, I kept my focus by noting as much detail in a small area as I could, down to tiniest sparkles.

When I came to KFD, Kenneth's assessment was that I needed to balance things out by strengthening my Samatha. I found it helpful to use images of continuity: a looping rubber band that goes round and round with the breath in front of my face, or the idea of watching waves come in and out over and over at the seashore. I also love Kenneth's metaphor of keeping the tip of one's finger just in contact with a cork bobbing in the water (a great metaphor for correcting overly-tight practice, which I certainly had).

Another possible helpful metaphor, depending on one's background: I sometimes consider Vipassana very digital, and my job is to sustain a solid, high sampling rate. Samatha is smooth and analog; just keep that tape running through the recorder, round and round and round...

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Vipassana -- watch closely, investigate what's going on with the breath. Are there sensations? What are they? Where are they? Are there mental images? What a re they? What happens in your stream of experience. second by second, as you watch the breath? Be like a cat watching a mouse hole. Ever observant and attentive.

Samatha -- ease into the breath. Don't investigate it, just get into the flow, the rhythm and the groove of participating in breathing, being a breathing entity. Try to stay lightly focused on the breath sensations as they occur, but pay no particular attention to any one sensation. Rather, try to get a feel for the entirety of the experience of breathing, all at once.

Helpful?

"

Thanks - I don't think I have ever really understood this difference. I tend to drill into the sensations by trying to hard and end up crossing A&P when I intend to do samatha. Will keep this in mind.

" I also love Kenneth's metaphor of keeping the tip of one's finger just in contact with a cork bobbing in the water (a great metaphor for correcting overly-tight practice, which I certainly had).
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Hmm - perhaps that explains why for a long time my strongest samatha was *off* cushion - because I couldn't hold the object too tightly.