Question

What balance of breathing awareness and reflection would you encourage in our sitting and standing meditation, assuming walking is not a time for reflection?

Answer

We often say to start with 50-50. 50% breathing awareness, 50% reflection. But then adjust it to a balance that your personality feels comfortable with. A lot of people jiggle it, 60-40, whatever. But I want to open this up more, when I say 50-50, included in the breathing awareness, which is part of the body awareness, is also the walking. We don't encourage reflection when walking because if you reflect too much you're not going to see those ants and you might step on them. Even if you're doing Compassion/Lovingkindness meditation in your mind, you may miss doing Compassion/Lovingkindness for real with your walking. That is why we don't encourage reflection when walking, unless perhaps when you're inside your home, of course. When it's quite safe, then it's all right.

But when you think of the balance: awareness of the breathing, body sensations (when you're scanning the body, feeling the pain, working with that) and walking meditation are all part of the body awareness type practice. Wise Reflection, Compassion/Lovingkindness, Sympathetic Joy, all that we are teaching you in these days, is the reflection side. You can start with 50-50 and then follow a personal balance, whether it's 40-60 or 60-40 as you wish.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.