Hi Christi:
I think we are headed in that direction, as per the discussion here on research on modifications to AYP practices, and the “bell curve” spanning the range of practitioner sensitivity and lack of sensitivity to practices:
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5103
It is only a matter of how and when it becomes formulated, tested by many, and made part of the systematic approach to practices. A broadening of the AYP approach to cover a wider range of practitioner sensitivities is inevitable, is happening already, and is a priority for future writings.
Discussions like this one are very useful, and a key part of the evolution that is constantly occurring in the community. It is the kind of thing that no one person can represent experientially. It takes a village. 
Thanks!
The guru is in you.
PS: It is not only meditation being viewed for sensitivities. It happens with other practices too, depending on the individual. There are numerous examples of sensitivity to many practices here in the forums – many discussions on self-pacing for maintaining progress with comfort and safety. So we are talking about a wide field of ongoing knowledge development, which I expect will be occurring for a long time into the future through the efforts of many researchers.
Hi Jill!
Thanks for chiming in and for the great contribution.
It is great to find out I am not alone in this. I agree with everything you say and I find the same. I gather from your post that you still mantain the AYP time routine (twice daily) but do it with the breathing now, is this correct? That is what I am doing now at the moment. the only thing is that often I find that I would like to - and can - stay longer with the breath.
I agree with Christi. AYP deep meditation can indeed be very strong for sensitive folk, and the breathing awareness meditation is a very good substitute, at least until things settle down. I, for one, am glad I realised this, as I did not want to stop meditating, but was finding using the mnatra intolerable for my system.
It is also good to know that other AYP techniques can be complemented over breath meditation, but I still want to stabilise my new practice first.
So true. I am quite enthusiastic about this new “toy” myself 
. It has definitely a different “flavour” to it in relation to the mantra. Indeed I also find the breath seems to connect me with my body and the life force and takes me inside very gently. It is the very flow of prana that sustains us that we are taping into and it is a very relaxing feeling to just allow and observe it working on its own. It is, like you say, a very organic thing, connecting us to our physiological mechanisms (like our heart) and naturally bringing us to stillness. I also find it nice that even during the day I can tap into the breath. It becomes almost automatic, like a ‘walking meditation’.
What do you do when the breath stops?
I find that my attention seems to naturally stabilise on a new object. Usually it substitutes the breath to whatever is there in its place. Either it’s some quality of ‘blackness’ or stillness, or some physical spot inside me, or even the flow of prana inside after the breath stops. In either case it seems to flow naturally and there are enough things happening inside that seem to be able to sustain the attention quite effortlessly. Still it does not happen often enough for me for this to be of concern anyway.
Thanks for your post Christi, very helpful, as always . I did not know what you were refeering to but searched on the net for the definition. It is very interesting as I do that practice almost automatically with my breathing meditation. It happens spontaneously if feelings/emotions arise. Maybe I was a buddhist in a former life! ) I guess is the same principle that also is used here in AYP - bringing the benefits of stillness into obstructions. For me it seems to be enough to just focus on the breath, all the rest happens automatically, with inner silence rising. If I am lost in feelings/emotions/thoughts I go back to the breath, and this seems to do the trick…
On a side note I just wanted to say that what I feel now almost certainly would not be possible if I had not been very regular in I AM AYP meditation for the last 10 months. It would also probably be many many more months of breath meditation before I could be where I am now I believe. And who knows, maybe I’ll go back to it later. Sure it is an effective practice, just too strong for some people I guess.
I was just checking with my mom (who also does I AM meditation for some months now) and she is ok with it for the moment - another proof that everyone is different. She does say she feels it’s strong though. I asked her if she rests lying down some 5min before getting up and she said she does. “You have to” she said, “you get a bit ‘knocked out’ from the meditation”. “But this is a good thing”, she remarked
“On a side note I just wanted to say that what I feel now almost certainly would not be possible if I had not been very regular in I AM AYP meditation for the last 10 months. It would also probably be many many more months of breath meditation before I could be where I am now I believe.”
Yes,spiritual path is a accumulative process ,i discovered that a few months ago.I think the most important thing is the road,not the tool,and when you are in front of a new tool “talking” to you,it has a meaning.With time you will know the meaning in your path.
Yil,im glad things are going well for you. 
God bless you all.
So true miguel, thank you!
Let’s see where this road leads us, shall we?..
God bless you too.
I was using breath meditation for many years before AYP and still use it on Buddhist retreats and at a weekly sangha.
For my daily practice I’ve been using the mantra and find, as has been said, that it is a lot more powerful.
At the moment I am having to ease back on the mantra time because of what is being said, it leads to overload very easily if I do 20 minutes of it regularly.
A while back I tried doing the 10 mins SB, 20 of Breath and Samyama for about two weeks to see how it would work out.
At the beginning it was working great, I found the breath meditation wery subtle and refined and very quiet. After a few days though I began to miss the extra dimension of the mantra and the urge to practice regularly began to wane.
This has been one of the most important aspects of AYP for me, the fact that, once it is established, it is something that is missed when not partaken and this leads to a much, easier to maintain, practice regime.
If possible, I think even a few minutes of the I AM mantra and then switch to the breath would be a good way to go, striking a balance somewhere that suits the system at the time.
That is great input Sparkle, thank you.
Yes, I know what you mean and I can understand it is so. I am still fine-tuning my own system and see what works for me in this field. But I can see how the mantra practice is easier to mantain in a daily basis, yes. But the balance between mantra-breath should be found though, in case of sensitive people/phases. I’ll do a few more weeks of the breath meditation and see how it goes. I trust the guide inside, when it’s time to go back to the mantra I’ll know.
Hi again YIL, Yes I do maintain the same twice daily schedule and yes I can go longer with the breath than with the mantra. I also do some self inquiry and tuning into the body and heart throughout the day. I love to meditate and can’t imagine not sitting so that is not even a question. Sometimes in the afternoon I get busy and forget to meditate but then I want to even more the next session.
I have to admit with the mantra 5 minutes could seem a lot longer. I did do SB and Samyama too and rested for a long time after so my routine was about 40 minutes or longer depending on the rest period. Sometimes the Samyama was so strong I lost track of time altogether and didn’t know how long I had been there.
Yogani, I like that we are creating as we go.
Love to all,
Jill
Hi Jill,
Thanks, that is great.
Two more questions if you don’t mind. You said you meditated with the mantra for 4 years before switching to breath. Can you tell me for how long have you been with the breath? Another question is: when (if) the breath stops, where do you focus your attention next? Thank you so much.
Hi Yogani! Sorry I did not acknowledge your post before, I haven’t seen it! Just now that Jill mentioned you I went back to see it…Thanks so much for expressing your opinion, it is highly appreciated.
Will keep posting if something changes in my experiences.
Hi Yogani,
You are right… it takes a village! It will be interesting to see how things expand and develop as people move forward. An exiting time.
Hi Yogaislife,
This question has come up a few times in the forum over the past few years. I just thought I would give the Buddha’s take on it as he was one of the first people to teach this practice to a mainstream audience. If I remember rightly the instructions he gave went something like this:
- When you are breathing in be aware that you are breathing in.
- When you are breathing out be aware that you are breathing out.
- When the breath is suspended inside the body, be aware that the breath is suspended inside the body.
- When the breath is suspended outside the body, be aware that the breath is suspended outside the body.
I have always followed this, but I have also found that when the breath suspends, the attention naturally turns on itself, a bit like the zazen practice of turning the light within.
Hi Miguel,
Yes, at the end of the day it has to be about the road, not the tool. If one tool is not serving it’s purpose at a particular stage on the path or at a particular time, then use one that does.
Christi
Thanks Christi, again great and helpful input.
This makes sense to me. I had similar experiences with the attention having a natural focus on wherever the breath is, or wherever it left it when it stopped. I also felt the attention turning inwards after suspension.
Hi YIL,
I said 2 years not 4. sorry if it was confusing. I just started with the breath some time in December.
Your other question is complicated. My breath doesn’t completely stop at this time. I have experienced the stopping of the breath when I was much younger. But I was not using the breath as object then. I was using the body at that time. One meditation session I became so absorbed in the process that I forgot to breathe. So then I didn’t have to switch to a new object. In my mind what happened was “oh isn’t that odd, I’m not breathing” Then went back to my meditation which consisted of scanning the body (not Goenka style) and releasing. At this time my breath almost stops when I am really tranquil. Then my attention turns to awareness of these wholesome states (see Buddha)
Sorry I took so long to answer this. 
Love to all,
Jill
Hi Jill, not at all, no worries about the timing. I am very happy you answered eitherway.
Yes, you wrote 2, not 4 years, my bad there.
That is great input, thank you. I am still investigating this whole business of what to do when the breath stops as it happens to me sometimes and probably I remain overconscious of it. I think the matter will resolve itself naturally in due time, and with practice.
This thread has been extremely helpful to me and thank you all for the contributions. I know have a better picture of the whole thing thanks to your inputs and can progress on my way with renewed confidence.
It has been said many times before but it can be said again - these forums can be extremely helpful and are a real blessing. THANK YOU!
In my experience, when the breath stops, the thinking also stops and there is nothing to do and nothing to think. Then, for me, the breath starts again but the experiencing in the breathless state can continue but the breath is no longer an object, there is no need of an object then.
Hi YIL,
great topic and wonderful discussion, learned a lot, thank you so much.
I just felt it would be good to mention, that if you wish to learn breath meditation, it probably would be a very good idea for you to attend a Buddhist meditation retreat with a good teacher. It’s a wonderful experience to go there for a week or two, and of course, you will daily receive precise meditation instruction, and continuous attentive guidance. Moreover, those retreats usually come in a format, where there is taught a Vipassana/Samatha/Metta Bhavana mix. In this way you can learn really a lot there.
The holidays are coming and I think Europe is well covered with experienced monks during the summer I’m going for sure.
Roman
Thanks Sparkle.
In my experience, when the breath stops, the thinking also stops and there is nothing to do and nothing to think. Then, for me, the breath starts again but the experiencing in the breathless state can continue but the breath is no longer an object, there is no need of an object then.
That's a good point Sparkle. I think I need to go deeper still to true no-thought/breathless states.
Thank you Roman! Great tip!
Actually it is a great coincidence because, as I got interested in breath meditation and wanted to know more, I was looking around for buddhist centres around here and then saw one that had what seemed like a nice retreat in mindfullness in April. So I’m gonna sign up. Thanks!
You know, it is going to be my first retreat…let’s see how it goes! I never thought I was the kind of guy to go on “meditation retreats” I guess meditation does that to a guy
I don’t feel that the advice that Buddha gave is good enough. The fact for me is that when my breath has stopped i am aware it has stopped and i have other thoughts in my mind. I still don’t know what a “thoughtless” state is nor do i believe that is even possible because who is there to know it is thoughtless?
Also, when the breath does stop how do i know i am not somehow somewhere intentionally holding it? And it also feels suffocating.
I have noticed a complete lack of mention of breath stoppage in all the Buddhist books and websites i have ever looked at. I want to know why that is.
What makes the tongue go back by itself and what does that mean? (please don’t say it is kundalini - i haven’t experienced anything like kundalini).
Hi Gumpi.
“who is there to know it is thoughtless?”
Thats a question from the mind too.When thought dissapears there is no more "who’s"and nothing to know.Toughtless is beyond the mind.
Hope this helps a bit.
Hi gumpi,
I don’t know how experienced you are in meditation, but it seems to me that you need to achieve a state of higher concentration, in order to experience the “thoughtless state.”
It goes like this (I’m talking about my own, authentic experiences. I did this several times.):
I sit down on the cushion, and relax my whole body stepwise. Then I focus first on the sensations of my legs touching the ground, for 1-2 minutes. Then continue observing sensations of my bum touching the cushion for 1-2 minutes. All the time I’m constantly mentally labeling “touching, touching, touching” or “pressure,pressure” and so on, whatever sensations happen to occur in that place. This is in order to help keeping the mind from wandering. Then also hands touching, and feeling the posture in general, for 1-2 minutes.
Then I place my attention on the sensations of raising and falling of the abdominal wall. (still labeling - raising, falling…)
Whenever the mind wander off, I acknowledge “thinking,thinking”, and gently go back to raising and falling. All the time I’m trying to recognize the sensations as precisely as possible. The concentration begins to raise.
I do this for 3 days, each day for about 8 or 10 hours. When outside of formal meditation, I try to observe and label as much of my movements and sensations as possible, moving rather slowly for that reason.
During the third day my concentration reaches a point, where a profound blissful silence begins to occur in the mind. All the usual mess in the mind radically slows down with that level of concentration. That means that you can sharply see distinct objects of the mind, one by one. You observe a thought, for instance, how it slowly begins to form in the mind, then it becomes clearer, then you notice the tendency to enter it, then you continue consciously observing it, then you witness the tendency to enter disappear, then the thought begins to faint, and finally it slowly vanishes, leaving behind a kinda empty bubble, or white fog - if your eyes are open. Then another object, like an emotion or sound, slowly starts to enter, and you do the same with it. This feels like watching through a powerful microscope, plus everything is in slow motion. This is a non-ordinary state of consciousness, and one cannot derive it from common experience.
When I get even a little sharper, carrying on with the concentration meditation, thoughts typically cease to enter the mind altogether. Then I can see rather big gaps, where the are no objects in the mind, although the mind is still there. Also “sati” is there, the faculty of consciousness which observes. Sati is not a thought, and continues to exist in the thoughtless state.
I’ve been told that later on, when you get even sharper, you begin to see the mind, the bits of experience (objects), and sati, as distinct objects to. Then you see first the object arise, then immediately the consciousness of it arise, and you see also sati. In that moment you recognize that there is still something else besides these three functions, which you can now consciously identify with.
This is what you get when you follow the Satipatthana Sutta, which is what the Buddha wanted us to do.
Hope this helps. Remember: you cannot reason your way into this. You need to use a different faculty of your mind: increase your concentration remarkably, in order to gain access to this.
Take care, gumpi
Roman
Dear gumpi,
See my post from before on this topic. http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4463#40334 Buddha describes his experience with the breathless state. So it was known in his time.
All I can say is when it has happened there was no sensation of ME holding the breath and it didn’t feel like suffocation at all. It felt liberating. I have also posted elsewhere that I believe there is some mechanism we humans have that is natural called the diving response. Dolphins have it too. The breath suspends for long periods during which the metabolism must change. I remember there would be a slight puff exhale perhaps three times in a meditation session that might last for 2 or 3 hours. Also I was not in an unconscious trance, rather I was very alert and mindful.
Love,
Jill