So finding a comfortable posture for this meditation, you want to make sure that your back is naturally straight, shoulders level, if you’re seated upright bring your chin in ever so slightly and direct your head slightly downwards. Let your eyes be soft and you can either keep them partially open or lightly closed. The key thing for these meditations is to settle our body in its natural state, imbued with three qualities, relaxation, stillness and vigilance. Let your awareness descend into, and fill, the entire space of the body, becoming aware of the tactile sensations in the body and if you notice any areas of tightness or tension, breathe into those areas. Invite yourself to relax and release that tension and as you attend to the sensations throughout the body, let your breathing come and settle in its own natural rhythm as if you were falling fast asleep. Just getting out of the way, letting the body breathe without constraint without control and for a little while, in a very soothing mode, breath by breath, relax with every exhalation, relaxing in the body and releasing any thoughts. Breath by breath settling into a deeper and deeper state of relaxation, without losing the initial clarity with which you began, aware of the full body but letting everything come to calm. Allow yourself to let go of any thoughts or worries about the past, the future, and even the present about how the meditation is going and especially as this method is the nostrils, take a moment to check up on the muscles of the face, especially those around the eyes, the forehead, see that your eyes and the muscles around the eyes feel soft when we’re tense and agitated. The eyes tend to feel hard, so let your eyes feel soft, relaxed. Your whole face in an expression of repose.  

Now more narrowly focus your attention, without altering the breath, just letting it flow naturally, focus your attention on the tactile sensations of the movement of air as you breathe in and breathe out, either on the area just above the upper lip or the very apertures of the nostrils, wherever you most distinctly sense at passage of the air. Once you have found that target area where you notice the passage of the air your job is to focus your attention single, pointedly on that target. 

We continue to relax deeply, utterly letting go of the breath with every exhalation, continue releasing and releasing until the next breath flows in effortlessly. As you breathe in, arouse and focus your attention, concentrate more but as the breath flows out deeply, relax. When you do become distracted and your mind begins to wander see if you can react not with a contraction or a tightness, but instead by loosening up, relaxing more, letting go of that distraction and gently guiding your awareness back to these sensations of the passage of the air. Let your awareness be filled from moment to moment with this ongoing flow of tactile sensations. Let your attention be so continuous, be so fully engaged that there is no space for wandering thoughts to invade your attention. Really fill your awareness with the mindfulness of breathing and experiment with counting if you find it helpful. If you do find it helpful, then now and again when the mind becomes quite distracted just introducing this very light punctuation, one count at the end of the inhalation, and apart from that, see if you can allow your mind to be as quiet, as conceptually silent as possible. The ideal here is to maintain the flow of mindfulness as continuously as possible but also we train the Faculty of Introspection what we call our quality control. 

Now and again monitor your body, see that your head isn’t tilting down, you’re not slumping over, maintaining that balance of the body that it is relaxed, it’s still. You’re in a posture of vigilance. Check that you’re not constraining the breath in any way, you’re not forcing the breath and then also frequently cheque in on the flow of mindfulness itself. As soon as you recognise the mind has become distracted, remember what to do. First of all, relax, then release whatever captivated your attention and return to the breath and if, with introspection, with quality control, you notice you’re becoming a bit vague, bit spaced out, dull, then take a fresh interest in the practise arouse, focus your attention, lift your head slightly, perhaps open your eyes to let some light in. With regards to the counting, set yourself a bit of a challenge. See if you can maintain awareness of the flow of the air for at least 7 rounds, 7 inhalations, 7 exhalations. Just experiment to see if you can. Do only 7 and if you can do 7, see if you can do seven more. So gently relax your concentration. Bring your meditation to an end. Thank you. 

Now we’ll go into our sort of talk and discussion. We had our day retreat yesterday and it went very well, it was very enjoyable. Because of that, I haven’t really had much of a chance to think about what our topic would be for the day, so what I’d like to do is share a story with you and then our discussion could be perhaps our interpretation of that story. What it means to us. 

A good nun lived a very simple life, she dwelled in a cave. She had a calm mind and very few possessions, and she practised well. Every morning she would take her alms bowl to the nearby village to collect just enough food for her one meal of the day. She had plenty of time to meditate, study, and teach what she knew to the local villagers. When she returned from her alms round one morning, she noticed that there was a hole in her spare robe. So she found a small piece of cloth to patch up the robe and she began to sew it onto her robe, she’d done this before because in her cave there was a family of mice and they liked to nibble at her robes. 

And while she was sewing, she thought, if I had a cat then there would be no mice. I wouldn’t have to spend so much of my time sewing patches. So, the next stage when she did her alms roll, she asked the villagers for a cat and they gave her a very well behaved brown cat whose colour matched her robes but the cat needed milk and fish, so the nun had to ask the villagers for these extra items every morning. 

And one morning, during her arms round, she thought that if I had my own cow, then I wouldn’t need to keep asking for milk to feed the cat to keep the mice away, and I wouldn’t have to sew my robes, so she asked one of her wealthy supporters for a cow. Once she had a cow, she had to get grass for the cow to eat, so she begged the villagers for grass to feed her cow. To provide milk for her cat to keep away, the mice that chewed her robes. 

After a few days, the nun thought that if she had her own field then she would not need to harass the poor villages for grass every day, so she arranged for a collection to be made to buy a nearby pasture to provide grass for her cow to provide milk for the cat, to keep the mice away that chewed her robes. 

But it was a lot of work looking after the pasture, catching the cow every morning, milking the cow, so she thought it would be helpful to have a young attendant, a boy from the village who could do these chores for her, and in return, the nun would give the boy moral guidance teachings. The villagers selected a boy from a poor family who was in dire need of some moral guidance and now she had an attendant to look after the pasture, to provide grass for her cow, to provide milk for the cat, to keep away the mice that chewed her robes. 

And now the nun needed to collect more than twice as much food every morning because the young boy eats a lot, and she also needed a small hut nearby for the boy to sleep in because it was against the rules for the boy to sleep in in the cave with a nun so she asked the villagers to build a hut for her boy, who looked after the pasture to provide grass for her cow to provide milk for the cat to keep the mice away that chewed her robes. 

And by this time, she began to notice the villagers were avoiding her. They were afraid she was going to ask them for something more so even when they saw any brown figure or brown cow approaching from the distance, they would think it was a nun, they would run away, hide in their houses, bolt the doors and pull the curtains over. When a villager did come to ask her some questions on meditation she said, “Sorry, not now I’m too busy. I have to go check the hut there, that is being built for the boy who looks after my field to graze my cow that provides milk for my brown cat that keeps away the mice so that I don’t need to keep patching my robe. Sorry I’ll help you another time.” 

And as she was saying that she noticed what she was saying and she realised this is the origin of materialism. She then told the villagers, please dismantle the hut and she sent the boy back to his family, gave away the cow in the field and found a good home for her cat and a few days later she had returned to her simple life, with few possessions, dwelling in a cave. After returning one morning from the village with just enough alms, food for her, one meal of the day, she noticed that a mouse had chewed another hole in her robe and with a quiet smile she sewed on another patch. 

So, it’s quite a nice little story and for me, it’s a nice little reminder of the nature of chasing happiness through material things. It’s of course not saying that we need to give away our possessions and you know, run away to live in a cave, but that we need to not get so wrapped up in our possessions and thinking that the solution to our problem lies in changing or manipulating the circumstances. In Buddhism it’s called changing suffering or changing distress, and you know each time she solved the problem, she created a new one, we try and solve a problem but there’s something else then that crops up that needs to be solved, so we keep chasing, keep chasing, solving this, solving that, and it’s called changing suffering. 

All along she had two problems, the inner one and the outer one. The inner problem was her dissatisfaction, her aversion to having to live with a mouse, keep sewing patches. Once we deal with our inner problem, in this case, she reflected on the dangers of attachment, accepting she learned that she needs to accept what is letting go of desire to control, then we have no problem that, we can deal with the situation with a with a quiet smile. 

Transcript by: MK