The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. So good morning or good day for this fifth talk on mindfulness of breathing and I've spent pretty much my whole adult life some 50 years now practicing mindfulness of

some 50 years now practicing mindfulness of breathing and it's been a wonderful journey. It's been

not something I've really gotten bored with ever.

It seems like it's always being renewed, always something new.

And I think that part of the reason for this is breathing is so intimately connected to so many different parts of our lives.

And how we breathe, what we breathe with as we breathe with our body and our emotions and

thoughts, it's always changing. It's always a process of deepening understanding or greater freedom, greater finding ease.

And the word that I like a lot to associate with breathing

is breathing easily, having an easy breath,

being at ease and breathing.

And it's not always that way for me,

but when that's there, it just seems so wonderful.

It's like a homecoming. It's a settling. And part of the reason for that

is that for me when the breathing is just easy and relaxed and just doing itself, breathing itself,

the breathing has become freed of all these attitudes or all these other psychological and physical activities that will often influence the breathing,

change the breathing, and emotions will change how we breathe. Attitudes and desires and

motivations will change how we breathe. What's happening around us will change how we breathe. The temperature will change how we breathe.

There's so many things that come into play that influence breathing and some of those have to do with being the agent,

being the doer, being the one who wants something,

or trying to avoid something, or has to succeed, or. the one that I can

to avoid something or has to succeed or has expectations and the one that I can

...