Having said that, there are certain practical processes that have to be learned by the practitioner before any progress can be made. These procedures differ according to particular traditions and schools/ disciplines but they have a lot in common, particularly these basic practices (which are always returned to). All of the techniques of meditation can be said to be based on one art; the art of concentration. And the first object of concentration is often the respiration process. This is most obvious in the widely popular ‘mindfulness’ school of meditation. Therefore, the Satipatthāna sutta, the ‘discourse on the establishment of mindfulness’ will be used here as a guide.

The first thing that the text tells us to do is to check our breathing. Am I taking deep breaths or shallow breaths? How fast am I breathing? Am I hyperventilating to a certain extent? Often, when we realise that we are breathing fast and shallow, we tend to automatically slow down, taking deeper breaths.

But this slowing down of the breath can be extenuated by ‘noting’ the breaths; by saying to ourselves ‘I am breathing out; I am breathing in’. The breaths become longer, more relaxed, and we begin to see the space between the exhalation and the consequent inhalation. We can linger here; waiting for the next breath to ‘take itself’, and the breathing slows down even more.

The next focus is on the mental. Our noting of the breaths going in and out provides a kind of mantra or chant. This verbalisation interferes with the usual mental flow, the stream of consciousness, or rather ‘scattered thoughts’. However, from time to time, the mantra – and it can be an actual mantra -  is disturbed by scattered thoughts flowing in. The practitioner learns to control these thoughts by returning concentration to the mantra of ‘I breathe in; I breathe out’.

Incidentally, each time one of these stream-of-consciousness interruptions occurs, we learn a little more about our own thought processes. When the focus on the breath  is interrupted by imposing thoughts memories and imaginary conversations, we can watch and learn, a kind of ‘open monitoring’ form of mindfulness. Because I am not just thinking automatically, because I am practicing mindfulness, I can see my thoughts in a more detached, conscious manner.