When I left the monastery, I knew the most important thing I was taking away was the practice, the mindfulness practice. At its core, the mindfulness practice there stresses breathing. We practice breathing, that is, awareness of breathing, the act of breathing, so that when we get into various situations, mostly disagreeable or progressively difficult, the practice can be implemented for practical benefit.

When I left, I thought it would be no problem maintaining the practice. I practiced well at the monastery, and breathing is always here, how difficult can it be to maintain the practice? There should be no problem implementing it either. It was a bit arrogant.

It occurred to me recently that I can't even remember the last time I consciously practiced breathing. As a topic, as an abstraction, "mindfulness" will pop into my head every once and a while, and that breathing is important, yadda-yadda-yadda. But I've stopped practicing it. I've stopped realizing that to be good at something, you need to practice it. Set some time apart for practicing it, and putting effort into it, rather than just thinking it will come naturally when I need it.

It was good that I dropped the ball, because now I'm putting an effort into practicing mindful breathing, and as a result, I can feel more of the mechanics involved.

Mindful breathing is awareness of self, it's being, or "self-being". While in Taiwan, I've progressively let myself get more and more annoyed by outside circumstances, some big, some small, I'm only dealing with the small ones now, the majority.

I've noticed a feeling when I get annoyed that my awareness is outside of me. It's with the thing annoying me, it's out there. Once I catch myself with this negativity, I stop what I'm doing, come back to my breathing and follow it slowly in and out, and I realize my awareness is now back with me, it's inside of me with the air that I'm breathing, and I'm not so annoyed anymore.

Imagine that.

It's as if allowing my awareness wander around outside of me and letting it be affected by external stimuli is the basis of dichotomy. It's part of that whole conundrum about only being able to persecute or oppress other people by first making them the "other". Once you've separated them from you, it is the beginning of being possible treat them poorly.

Focusing on breathing and on the self is more an emphasis on oneness. I was annoyed by some external stimuli, but focusing on breathing makes me realize myself as a whole, and as a whole I can take them in and not be so annoyed.

Not that it's a problem letting my awareness wander around outside of me to be affected by external stimuli. That can't be helped. But it's the step after that, the attitude towards it.