Focus on the breath.

I enjoy the realisation that comes from picking up a new skill. But I find mapping it out as a visible and shareable mental model much more difficult. I've thought about the below so much though at this point that I have greater conviction to publish it here:

I've been meditating for a few years now and one of the comforts that implementing said activity into my daily being has given me is the ability to summon calm in chaos. Sometimes that chaos would come from inner turmoil (my internal world), but most of the time it would be extrasensory experiences, frequently from other people (the external world) that needed stabilising.

What I've found in the act of meditation is that no matter what's going on for me, I'm usually able to stay in control. I say 'usually' because meditation is a practice and it takes time to overcome ingrained default reactions to things - sometimes those unwanted habits will surface, and if they do it's important to practice self-kindness and try again (I can probably draw out a model for this too in due course).

In the summoning of calm, it is the perpetual and reliable breath of the human respiratory system that acts as the anchor. Because it's a dynamic act that's always there and can flow seamlessly between conscious and unconscious control, it pairs nicely with similar fluidity found in the focus of the conscious mind.

In Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning, the idea of making a choice in the space between perception and action is fundamental to agency and autonomy. Not even the oppressive environment of Nazi extermination camps could break the author's will in this realisation. In light of such extreme adversity, he discovered and familiarised himself with his most bare minimum survival faculties to develop a self with incredibly resilient integrity - in essence, he discovered sanctuary in meditation.

It is these very foundational faculties we end up neglecting in our day-to-day. So good is our biology at automating the experience of living that we can set aside such 'basics' and devote our consciousness to the bureaucratic management of our internal and external worlds. Unfortunately, ignorance cyclically breeds neglect and we end up unable to return to ourselves - our fundamental selves as consciousness.

If we consider sustained focus on the breath, and in-turn observing the conscious mind, we are, as detailed in the Buddhist tradition, on our way to enlightenment. As such, we can lay down these initial steps as part of our longer journey:

Elementary steps to enlightenment

1. When stimuli trigger feelings, find solace in considered response rather than reaction.
2. Develop this ability by bringing the agentic self to the realm of awareness.
3. Following the breath as an anchor point creates a non-harmful shift in focus towards this realm.
4. Use it as a gateway to access deeper consciousness [to be continued in a future post].

We may find ourselves sabotaging this process and letting the steps erode away through neglect in our mind. But we can also (should we believe in a deterministic universe) rebuild these steps should this happen, so too must we dearly hold onto optimism as an enabler of our journey from adversity [another future post].

Stay well; until next time.