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meditation question on 16APS, goenkas vipassana, parimukha


https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/33501/goenkas-vipassana
I focus now on bigger area from top of the nose to upper lip.When I watch breath my focus goes from upper lip to nasal passage but could not return to upper lip that is my tiny spot of focus .It gets stucked up to nostril or base of nose.So what should I do to focus continuously upper lip to top of nose and return back from top of nose to upper lip.

In the words of the Buddha, "pari-mukham satim" (step 0.5) in the sutta:
http://lucid24.org/sn/sn54/sn54-003/toc-addon/index.html

Translated literally means somewhere near the mouth area. In the vinaya, pari-mukham can refer to chest hair area, facial hair, so if you take the physical interpretation of that phrase, it's not exact, and most people translate it in physical spatial terms as "in front".

There's also figurative a meaning, "pari-mukham" meaning to make that that main priority, the main task. Just like in the English expression, "focusing on the task at hand". It doesn't literally mean the spatial location of your hands.

So the answer to your question is, it doesn't really matter exactly where near the mouth you focus. 16 APS anapana isn't about that. The point is to use the breath as a way to fill up the entire bandwidth of your attention so you stop unprofitable thinking, and then thinking itself (mental talk). Using the mouth area as a spatial focal point is just a suggested preliminary way to achieve that. The important part of 16 APS is to develop a calm, lucid state of mind that uses the pleasurable experience of attending fully to the tactile experience of breath sensation pervading the body as a natural incentive. It's easy to enter samadhi when the mind is happy and occupied. And the mind is much happier when it doesn't feel constricted, stuffed into a tiny box.

Comments

  1. UnknownJune 4, 2019 at 4:30 PM

    Last few years, I've been looking at "parimukham" as "about the face." (See "mukhavanno" as "your faculties (face) are clear" in many suttas. Actually, Sarvastivada Abhidharma, I think, had a tradition of dealing with the face in anapana. As I remember, it was looked at as the seat of emotions. Bhante Vimalaramsi also talks about relaxing the space between the eyebrows as the way to slowing down thoughts.

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