Bongwoo Tao Breathing 16 Steps-Step 1

Step 1

Sit in a clean and quiet room and calm your heart and your mind.  Then begin your breathing practice.   As you sit in meditation, initially your own pain, wounds, anguish and suffering may arise.  During your meditation, practice overcoming your anguish by enduring your suffering without thinking about anything else.  You are being encouraged to stay present with your suffering and see it transform.

Those who actually want to practice the breathing method must first make an extraordinary commitment to overcome any difficulties and have a firm determination to fully practice and experience the breathing method.  When you stay true to your commitment, you will reap the beauty of achievement at the end.  If a beginner learns to start breathing, the first thing  they must do is to cultivate peace of mind. In other words, a student should sit quietly and comfortably with a calm mind. Even experienced meditators who usually have few thoughts in their mind, will have all sorts of useless thoughts arise and shake the stability of their mind when they do the breathing practice.

A student may waste valuable time wrestling with these useless thoughts during meditation so it is recommended to continue to practice breathing, despite the intrusive thoughts.  A student is encouraged to continue to sit in a quiet and comfortable posture and continue breathing naturally.  If you do this for a week, the thoughts will calm down. The key to the first step of the Bongwoo Tao Breathing Method is to actually experience how the deluded mind creates unnecessary thoughts and how these thoughts are reduced as you continue your breathing practice.  

Before going to bed at night and when you wake up early in the morning, practice observing your thoughts for at least an hour.  If you do this for 20 days, you will find that your thinking will calm down. Though we will discuss the sitting posture required for this spiritual training, initially the only requirement for a beginning student is to sit comfortably. First, cross your legs and sit down. At this time, do not get caught up making your body sit in the lotus posture or half lotus posture, just sit naturally.  However, it is important not to straighten your back too much and unnecessarily strain your lower back. In this posture, bend your head slightly, so that you are not looking straight ahead. The eyes are not closed during meditation and are lowered to the ground in front of you. How you place your hands during meditation doesn’t matter so you can place your hands naturally on your lap or cup one hand with the other hand or intertwine your fingers.  

No matter which comfortable posture you may choose to sit in, beginners are usually unable to maintain their meditation posture because of symptoms such as numbness in the legs or back pain. At this time, do not ignore the pain and continue to meditate.  You are encouraged to move your legs or do some simple warming up exercises before you continue to sit in meditation.  You will find that over time, without your conscious realization, your body will start to sit comfortably for an hour or two. . The most important aspect of meditation is not your sitting posture, but your sincerity.

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