Category: Buddhism

The worldly Winds howl into the brain and start generating farts as hit it, if I’m not careful I can spend the day farting. It’s like a circle of farts as Pleasure & Pain, Praise & Blame, Gain & Loss, Fame & Disrepute bounce my head around in circles from my own behavior to all the horrible demons I have to live with.

In meditation the most common solution to any problem is to go back to paying attention to the breath, the pleasure, refreshment and wonder of the breath coming in and going out. If you stop and watch, you can develop it like a craft, sure I’ve been breathing all my life but I haven’t paid any attention to it. It really is a learned skill to notice a small physical breath and what is pleasant in the breath and what exactly is unpleasant.

Everyone assumes that if you sit down to meditate the lotus pose and a little chanting empties out your skull. It’s never worked that way for me and the thoughts just keep popping up, what happens now is I see a thought and I don’t have to chase after it like a deranged hound dog. I just go back to my breath.

Unfortunately Worldly Wind Farts can often keep stinking up the place. That’s when the next paintbrush in the craft comes out.

Depending on the translation the second step on Buddha’s path is right Resolve or Intention. Making the choice to do this one thing. In Buddhas case pay attention to the breath, in my case draw funny books. Often people think paying attention is no big deal and sex, exercise, hunting even cooking is the same thing as paying attention to the breath. In comics only writers think doing comics is no big deal and everyone else is overwhelmed by doing them. Even as a professional comics hack, I always thought doing comics was no big deal until I started trying to do my own.

But what meditation teaches is the actual skill of paying attention to one thing. Just setting your intention is a start but the mind always wanders off. As you focus on the breath you need to explore that idea, evaluate what it is doing and see how it works. In comics you need to evaluate the lines you are drawing, the shapes you are making, the story you are telling and is this sequence, panel all working. The third factor is singleness are you doing just this one thing.

I can’t do a thing without an intention to do that thing. So to practice, “I am going to pay attention to my breath”. I take a breath and think about food. So I reset my intention on the breath. Then think about comics. Science has shown that multitasking doesn’t exist, so how do you do one thing?

Look at each action you take as steps, drinking coffee, is reaching, picking up and bringing it to the lips, swallowing, putting back down again. Every action, in Buddhism thoughts are actions too, starts with an intention followed by the next moment where you are doing one of the steps. Each of these tiny little micro-steps provide an opportunity for the choice of another path. My hand is stiff and hurts when I reach for the coffee, my brain wanders to MS, carpal tunnel, how many stretches I did in the morning and I can spend hours moaning about any of those.

The trick is, try and watch my intentions arise to head off on other paths when I select what is next. Obviously this happens so fast I”m not going to see it when I drink my coffee. And do I really want to spend my day focused on my coffee drinking habits? I”d never get anything done.

That’s why I spend the time meditating on the breath. It’s simple, always there and I can focus on it. Buddha offers steps, first how long is each breath, then what is happening in my body, what is fabricated from this breath and how it feels in my feet, fingers head and across my whole body.