The following advice from Ajahn Brahm and Ajahn Amaro has been very helpful to my practice:
When you focus on the breath, you focus on the experience of the breath happening now. You experience `that which tells you what the breath is doing', whether it is going in or out or in between. Some teachers say to watch the breath at the tip of the nose, some say to watch it at the abdomen and some say to move it here and then move it there. I have found through experience that it does not matter where you watch the breath. In fact it is best not to locate the breath anywhere! If you locate the breath at the tip of your nose then it becomes nose awareness, not breath awareness, and if you locate it at your abdomen then it becomes abdomen awareness. Just ask yourself the question right now, "Am I breathing in or am I breathing out?" How do you know? There! That experience which tells you what the breath is doing, that is what you focus on in breath meditation. Let go of concern about where this experience is located; just focus on the experience itself. - Ajahn Brahm
http://www.dhammaloka.org.au/articles/i ... ation.html
Narrowing the Attention by Focusing on the Breath
There may be a tendency for the mind to drift and wander. See how easily it gets caught… snagged by this or that and swept away. So we take a simple object, and train the mind to attend to the present moment. Perceive the presence of the body here in the space of awareness, and then, among all the feelings of the body, narrow the attention down to focus on the little cluster of feeling which is the rhythm of the breath. Don’t try to change the breath in any way. Don’t do anything special with it. Just feel the body breathing according to its own rhythm. Let that simple pattern, that simple cluster of feelings, be right here at the very centre of attention, like the pattern at the heart of a mandala. For this period of time, make the resolution: “Right now I’m not interested in anything else… any great ideas… any plans, projects, worries, arguments, memories or in sounds from the world around me. All that can be gently laid aside. Right now, all I’m interested in is the simple rhythm of my own breathing.” All the rest can be picked up later if need be. Right now, for these few minutes, let the breath be the very centre of attention. Simply follow the sensations… the in-breath and the out-breath as they come and go. Wherever you feel them strongly… in the chest or the diaphragm… the tip of the nose… the throat. Let that rhythm be what teaches you… what guides you. Let the attention settle upon that… gently… firmly… with ease...The practice of mindfulness of breathing brings the attention to the natural flow of the breath. Focusing on the simple aggregation of feelings and sensations of the breath is similar to focusing on the centre of a mandala or the centre of a beautiful rose. The eye naturally goes to the centre – the heart of the rose. With the mindfulness of breathing practice, the breath is similar to the very heart of the mandala, of the flower. With the attention resting on that particular spot, other experiences or perceptions, such as sounds in the street, feelings in the body, stray thoughts, etc., remain around the periphery. Keep bringing the attention to the breath, the centre, the balancing point. That is the axis of the attention. - Ajahn Amaro
http://www.abhayagiri.org/books/finding ... sing-peace
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.
- BB