Contemplative Practice Is Like a Hitching Post: It Is for Tethering the Horse of the Manas

Lantian 1's contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) journal: Sitting in meditation, I used active deep abdominal breathing—inhaling to the maximum, pausing briefly, then exhaling to the maximum, and pausing briefly again. After about half an hour of deep breathing, I could feel a distinct sensation of qi, after which I slowly transitioned to natural abdominal breathing. 

Following the sutra text of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra (Four Foundations of Mindfulness), I no longer thought about anything else during the breathing, always maintaining awareness of the breath. Only then did I discover that my thoughts would pop up from time to time, and at times it was truly difficult to control and keep them from arising. The main content of these thoughts was the faces of people I had been in frequent contact with recently or over the past few days—the more contact I had with someone, the more strongly their face would appear. Now I understand why the ancients all avoided crowded places when cultivating practice. This may well be what is called the manas's characteristic of grasping (upādāna) and habituation. Only toward the end of the meditation session did my brain gradually begin to feel somewhat clear and lucid. 

Today's meditation felt mediocre; the mind was not very calm. During sitting, the faces of people I frequently interact with inexplicably flashed up, and my natural abdominal breathing was not very deep and long. 

Assessment: This fully demonstrates the manas's imputed nature (parikalpita-svabhāva) and its characteristic of grasping—its attachment to states it has previously encountered, whether meaningful or meaningless, attending to and clinging to them all, unwilling to let the mind rest. To subdue this wild horse, you must tether it to the post of the breath. At first it will jump and buck wildly, but after a long time it will grow accustomed to it and quiet down, beginning to attend to and investigate the post and the scenery around the post. Then things become easy to handle. This is called getting onto the Path.