After a few years in the making the five-day Progressive Breath Awareness Booster course (aka Part 2 of Breath: Questions for Contemplation; Perceptions and Practice Ideas) is now available for purchase on Insight Timer and free for Plus members (which includes a 1-month free trial). Day one is free for everyone.
Since I find being aware of breath (for longer periods) very helpful, yet at the same time quite challenging, the intent to discover new and better ways to deepen and prolong breath awareness brought through most everything in this course to contemplate, meditate with and experience each part piece by piece.
The decision to initially keep private much of the material in this course came when assembling 2020’s Breath: Questions for Contemplation; Perceptions and Practice Ideas which is highly recommended as prerequisite. Since part one wasn’t designed for Insight Timer’s course format it didn’t make since to use the same title and then tack on a “Part 2” hence the rename Progressive Breath Awareness Booster while also siding with a course format release for wider adoption and benefit.
The writeup for Breath: Questions for Contemplation; Perceptions and Practice Ideas states:
In addition to this public presentation the private portion may be given if working with me, or may be released later. Much of what’s public is aggregated from other public sources while the private includes material I’m unsure of what portion is public and what portion is not.
“Being unsure of what portion is public and what portion is not” mostly means there’s really no simple way to verify what’s considered as new and original for this course hasn’t already been put out there in some shape, form or manner and to what degree of (dis)similarity.
The choice for this type of release also brought up and includes the classic question of whether or not it’s OK to charge for meditation instructions. Below is a portion of my email response to this very consideration (with additions and edits in brackets for retrospective clarity):
. . . I thought and pondered this long and hard while making this course. I even reached out to Insight Timer to request an option for this course to not be sold individually while still making it available to plus members who [more or less] donate to the platform (to support all the free users) and then [plus] members get access to all the courses (amongst other features) and then insight timer in turn more or less donates to teachers if I’m getting all this right.
I made sure nothing included in the course, to my current knowledge, came directly from any Buddhist canon nor directly from any Buddhist teachers (other than a handful of descriptive word choices) as it’s obvious Buddhist teachings are provided freely in the spirit of generosity.
As soon as Insight Timer offers the option to only make this course available to [donating] members I’ll choose that and even better if I will be allowed to mention that anyone interested in this course can contact me directly and get it freely. I surely plan to mention this on my website for the announcement write up for this course too.
. . .
I invite further thoughts, feelings and advice about all this
The female barefoot in the desert image above, as well as the windblown male silhouette for this blog post’s main image were both rejected by Insight Timer. They write, “for courses, we recommend using, clean, warmer, minimalistic, bold, and compelling images that generate positive emotions in our audience.”
Again, the suggested free prerequisite:
And (then) check out the course. The first day is free for everybody, the entire five days free for Insight Timer Plus members (which includes a 1-month free trial), and/or (currently available) for $19.99: https://insighttimer.com/meditation-courses/progressive-breath-awareness-booster or the easy to remember: https://tinyurl.com/breathcourse. There’s a multiple choice reflective question at the end of each of the five days with no right or wrong answer as well as a virtual classroom for students to ask (me) questions.
Born of necessity for more optimal breath meditation and almost even just being able to use breath as a meditation object nearly at all, I wish the best optimal outcomes to all who come across this course.
Integrating Presence 