[15Praxanant]

Assuming that there are other posters here who practice it that is.

Well, never fear Sri - I do, so I'll get the ball rolling with some basic issues I faced when I started checking out the various instructions on anapanasati.

Firstly, I was unsure of quite how to deal with 'mindfulness of breathing'. This can be interpreted in many ways. Does one, for example, aim to pin ones awareness to a particular point; tip of the nose, somewhere in front of the chest or even follow the breath in and out? Does one count the breaths in any way?

I'd be interested to get feedback on things members have experimented with and the experiences they gained.

And how do we judge success? Is it a case of retaining the object for a certain length of time to the exclusion of everything else? Are thoughts suppressed in any way?

Any thoughts there?

Okay, you're sitting comfortably and closing (or not closing, which?) your eyes. You're wondering if you are hindrance-free enough to get anywhere with this and there's some kind of noise going on...

...or something like that! What do you do?