Keep coming back to your breath

The mind is a trickster. It loves playing games. Some are amusing, others are dangerous. Whether your thoughts lift you up or pull you under, they’re seductive and deceptive. You get mesmerized. Hooked. Lost.

But remember: thoughts are impermanent. They lack substance. Don’t get conned by your own mind.

What we often perceive as distractions or obstacles in meditation are actually reminders—reminders to stabilize the mind. Use the breath. Use it as a laser beam to blast through both the positive and negative arisings. This isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence. And doing this consistently accelerates your most precious birthright: liberation from madness.

Forget about global madness for a moment. Acknowledge your own madness first. Are you tired of drowning in your own inner commentary? Can you hear the voice of the beloved calling you home? Then step aside. Get out of your own way.

You cling to the pleasant, resist the unpleasant. That’s the merry-go-round of meditation. You try to be silent, but then find yourself clinging again. And when you get tangled in this dualistic spaghetti, you eventually drift downstream and ask, “How did I get here?” You got hooked. Then you judge yourself for getting hooked. More thoughts. More story. The spaghetti turns to mush.

Even the most blissful meditations are filled with failure. That’s normal. Admit you’ve failed. Let it go. Don’t turn failing into an identity. Use it as fuel. Motivation. Practice becoming a master of letting go—and come back to the breath.

Put your breath at the forefront of awareness. Notice how you can technically be aware of your breath while still running an internal dialogue? That’s because your curiosity about the breath is weaker than your fascination with thought. There’s a kind of inner laziness. Be like a cat at a mouse hole—alert, poised, ready. Amplify your inhale and exhale for a few moments to reignite your attention, then return to natural breathing.

One moment of clear attention leads to two minutes. Then three. Then five. Some days you’ll feel like a disaster. Own it. Be a noble, disastrous meditator. Then move on. It always changes.

Every time you wake up from thought—even for the thousandth time—you’re rewiring your mind. That’s the practice. Yes, you’ll fail again and again. But eventually, you’ll succeed.

And what does success look like? It’s when you stop fixating on thoughts—positive or negative—and begin to look at the one who’s looking. That’s lightness of mind. That’s freedom.

The mind will keep grabbing. “Think of me. I’m real! I’m important!” That’s why we need an anchor. A primary object. In this case: the breath.

The instruction to “return to the breath” is itself a thought. For example: “Breathing in long, I know I breathe in long. Breathing in short, I know I breathe in short.” This mantra anchors you. It’s useful. But eventually, even this has to be released.

At first, it's necessary. It stabilizes attention. It helps you see the stream of arisings. But later, even the thought “I am breathing in” must be relinquished. Why? Because it reinforces the illusion of a permanent “I.” A subtle doer. A meditator. And that’s not ultimate truth.

Eventually, sustained awareness allows you to let go of the “I am meditating” narrative. You stop needing something to look at—like breath—and begin to look at the looker. That’s the path out of suffering. If the “I” keeps showing up, there’s still clinging.

In the later stages of a sit, you may notice that even the self-motivation quiets. Thoughts like “You’re doing well, keep going, you’re back on track” become less helpful. Let them go too.

Even labelling your physical pain with words is still thought. Let that go. A thought like “I’m doing great today!” might give you a confidence boost, but often it’s a subtle form of conceit. The breath does help us stabilize, but eventually even that relationship becomes a barrier if we cling to it.

It helps to remember: you’re not breathing. The universe is breathing you. Witness that. Let yourself be breathed.

Keep watching the watcher. Look at the one who is looking. That’s the way out of the mind’s endless tricks.

Let thoughts drift by like leaves in a stream—or less poetically, like junk floating down a river. Don’t reach in. Don’t get wet. Stop grasping for yesterday’s junk, tomorrow’s junk, fantasies, regrets. It’s all just mental debris. And meditation is not about grasping. It’s about relinquishing.

Let go of the idea that you are meditating. There is no meditator. Just breath. Just awareness.

Even these words—helpful though they may be—must be left behind. If thoughts continue to fuel the inner commentator, you're still circling. You haven’t arrived. You're still wandering in search of home.

And isn’t that what you want? To come home?

There’s a home waiting for you. Not a rental. A true home. And only you can walk through the door. No one can do it for you. You’re the problem, and you’re the solution. Don’t hover on the porch of your mind. Enter the vastness of awareness. That doorway is one breath—just one breath—away.

Stop playing head games. Aren’t you bored of them yet? The same repetitive loops, the same internal drama? The transcendent game is simpler, more vibrant. It’s what the sages called “organic happiness.”

So keep letting go. Keep returning to the breath. For 45 minutes, just follow the breath without commentary. That’s all. It’s deceptively simple. Even if you’re complicated, your practice doesn’t have to be.

Taste liberation for yourself.

Forget the quotes. Forget the gurus. For a moment, let it all fall away.

Take refuge in your own practice. Right here. Right now.

You could awaken in one meditation sit. It’s happened before. It will happen again. Awakening is a noble pursuit—until it becomes a non-pursuit. Because it's simply the natural unfolding of this moment… when nothing is held.

By Evangelos Diavolitsis