Ānāpānasati: breath meditation, the sutta and its 16 steps

Ānāpāna (आनापान) is the Pali word for the in-breath and the out-breath. Ānāpānasati (also spelled ānāpānassati) means mindfulness of breathing: keeping attention on breathing as it happens. It is the breath meditation taught first on many Vipassana courses, and most of the traditions described on this site use the breath in some way, though they rest attention in different places and use it for different ends.

The source: the Ānāpānasati Sutta (MN 118)

The main canonical text is the Ānāpānasati Sutta, discourse 118 of the Majjhima Nikāya, the Middle Discourses. It is set near Sāvatthī on a full-moon day, with the Buddha sitting in the open among a large gathering of monks. He lists the meditations they are committed to, from the four kinds of mindfulness meditation to the contemplation of impermanence, and ends with mindfulness of breathing, which the rest of the sutta explains.

In Bhikkhu Sujato's translation, a meditator goes to a wilderness, the root of a tree or an empty hut, sits cross-legged, sets the body straight and brings mindfulness to the present: "Just mindful, they breathe in. Mindful, they breathe out." The sutta then sets out sixteen steps, and closes by explaining what the practice leads to.

The sixteen steps of ānāpānasati

The sixteen steps come in four groups of four, one group for each of the four kinds of mindfulness meditation (satipaṭṭhāna): body, feelings, mind and principles. Each step is practised breathing in and breathing out. In the first two the meditator simply knows the breath. From the third on, the sutta describes a training (sikkhati), each step phrased as an intention: "I'll breathe in experiencing the whole body." The names below follow Sujato's translation, with the Pali key word where it helps.

Steps 1 to 4: the body

1. Knowing a long breath as long (dīgha). Sujato translates the word as "heavily"; Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu's translation has "long".
2. Knowing a short breath as short (rassa): "lightly" in Sujato's version.
3. Experiencing the whole body.
4. Stilling the physical process (kāyasaṅkhāra), which Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu renders as "calming bodily fabrication".

The sutta explains why breathing belongs under the body: "the in-breaths and out-breaths are an aspect of the body". The same four steps open the breathing section of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (MN 10); see the four foundations of mindfulness.

Steps 5 to 8: feelings

5. Experiencing rapture (pīti).
6. Experiencing bliss (sukha).
7. Experiencing the mental process (cittasaṅkhāra).
8. Stilling the mental process.

Here the sutta counts "careful application of mind to the in-breaths and out-breaths" as an aspect of feelings (vedanā).

Steps 9 to 12: the mind

9. Experiencing the mind (citta).
10. Gladdening the mind.
11. Immersing the mind in samādhi.
12. Freeing the mind.

The sutta adds a condition: there is no development of mindfulness of breathing "for someone who is unmindful and lacks awareness".

Steps 13 to 16: principles

13. Observing impermanence (anicca).
14. Observing fading away (virāga).
15. Observing cessation (nirodha).
16. Observing letting go (paṭinissagga).

Of this last group the sutta says: "Having seen with wisdom the giving up of covetousness and displeasure, they watch over closely with equanimity."

The sutta names the steps but does not say how long each takes or how a meditator moves from one to the next; that is left to teachers, and the traditions below differ. Suan Mokkh, the Thai hermitage founded by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu, describes ānāpānasati as covering both concentration and insight meditation.

What the sutta says it leads to

MN 118 makes a large claim for the practice. Mindfulness of breathing, "when developed and cultivated", is "very fruitful and beneficial", and the second half of the sutta explains why, one link at a time:

1. Mindfulness of breathing fulfils the four kinds of mindfulness meditation, as the four groups of steps show.
2. The four kinds of mindfulness meditation fulfil the seven awakening factors (bojjhaṅga).
3. The seven awakening factors fulfil "knowledge and freedom" (vijjāvimutti, which Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu translates as clear knowing and release).

The sutta describes the seven factors arising one from another while the meditator observes body, feelings, mind or principles:

• Mindfulness (sati): mindfulness is "established and lucid".
• Investigation of principles: the meditator investigates, explores and inquires into it "with wisdom".
• Energy (vīriya): energy is "roused up and unflagging".
• Rapture (pīti), "not of the flesh".
• Tranquillity: body and mind become tranquil.
• Immersion (samādhi): with the body tranquil and feeling bliss, the mind becomes immersed.
• Equanimity (upekkhā): the meditator closely watches over the immersed mind.

Developed in this way, the factors "rely on seclusion, fading away, and cessation, and ripen as letting go". These are the sutta's own claims, about a path to awakening. It says nothing about stress, sleep or health; for those questions, see what research on breath meditation has found.

How the traditions use the breath

The same sutta is taught in quite different ways. Where attention rests, and what the breath is meant to lead to, depends on the tradition.

Tradition	Where attention rests	What it leads to
Goenka	The natural breath at the nostrils, then sensations in that small area	About three and a half days of concentration, then vipassanā on body sensations
IMC	A spot at the base of the nose, for about the first five days	Concentration, then vipassanā
Mahasi	The rising and falling of the abdomen, noted silently	Continuous noting and insight
Pa-Auk	The place the breath touches, at the upper lip or nostrils	Usually jhāna, then insight
Thai Forest	The nose-tip (Ajahn Chah); "Buddho" with each breath (Ajahn Lee)	A calm, collected mind
Suan Mokkh	Breathing, as Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu taught ānāpānasati	Concentration in the first days, then insight
Sunlun	The touch of deliberately strong, fast breathing	Quick concentration, then the unpleasant sensation it produces
Mogok	The breath, briefly, when the mind is restless	Calm before contemplating feeling and mind

On S. N. Goenka's courses students observe the breath "without adding any word, shape, or form". His Day Ten discourse gives two reasons: breath is common to everyone, while a word or form may be acceptable to some and not to others; and the course investigates reality as it is, which cannot start from an imagination. Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo, a Thai forest teacher, takes a different approach: in his Method 2 the meditator thinks bud- with the in-breath and dho with the out-breath.

Mahasi Sayadaw's centres watch the abdomen rather than the nostrils. His biography explains that the average meditator finds this movement, which it treats as the element of motion (vāyodhātu), easier to note. It adds that the method is not imposed: a meditator at a Mahasi centre may practise ānāpānasati instead.

In Pa-Auk Sayadaw's manual Knowing and Seeing, the meditator stays with the breath at the place it touches and does not follow it into or out of the body. As concentration develops, a sign of concentration (nimitta) may appear. The manual uses the breath to reach jhāna, deep meditative absorption, before the meditator turns to insight.

Simple guidance for a first sit

Breath awareness is one of the few practices that teachers across traditions describe in public for beginners. The points below summarise that published guidance. They are not a course: every tradition teaches the later stages with a teacher.

1. Sit upright but relaxed. Spirit Rock's introduction, adapted from Jack Kornfield, suggests sitting on a cushion or a chair in "an erect yet relaxed posture".
2. Let the breath be natural. Ajahn Chah says not to be concerned with whether the breath is long or short, weak or strong: "we just note it". The aim is to observe the breath, not to regulate it.
3. Rest attention where you feel the breath. Spirit Rock suggests wherever you notice it: coolness or tingling in the nose or throat, or the rise and fall of the chest or abdomen. Goenka, IMC, Pa-Auk and Ajahn Chah all narrow attention to a small area at the nose or upper lip.
4. When the mind wanders, come back. Spirit Rock suggests softly naming what carried you away ("planning", "remembering") and gently returning to the breath. Goenka's courses add no words. Knowing and Seeing suggests counting breaths, up to at least five and no more than ten, if the mind will not settle.
5. Keep it short at first. Spirit Rock's introduction suggests 20 or 30 minutes, then opening the eyes and looking around before getting up.

The meditation timer on this site rings a bell to begin and end a sit, with optional interval bells.

Common difficulties

• Controlling the breath. Goenka's courses and Ajahn Chah both ask for the natural breath, not a controlled one. Sunlun's strong breathing is a deliberate method, taught within its own tradition.
• Not feeling the breath. Goenka's Day Ten discourse recalls that students who could not feel the breath were allowed to breathe slightly hard for a while, to fix attention in the area of the nostrils, and then to return to natural, soft breathing.
• Drowsiness. His Day Six discourse suggests breathing slightly hard, getting up to sprinkle cold water on the eyes, or walking a little before sitting again.
• A restless mind. Wandering is expected; the practice is to notice it and return. Counting (Pa-Auk) or a meditation word (Ajahn Lee) are two traditional supports; Goenka's tradition avoids both.
• Lights and images. Knowing and Seeing tells meditators not to attend to the colour of the nimitta if one appears.

What research on breath meditation has found

Claims about the benefits of Anapana are easy to find. The peer-reviewed evidence on attention to the breath is narrower: mostly short experiments, often with university students, measuring effects minutes or weeks later. These five studies show what has been tested.

Study	Who took part, and what they did	What it found
Arch and Craske, 2006	Mainly undergraduates; a 15-minute recorded focused-breathing exercise, compared with 15 minutes of unfocused attention or of worrying	Afterwards the breathing group responded to neutral pictures as before, while the other two groups rated them more negatively. The breathing group also reported less negative feeling than the worry group, and was more willing to look at very unpleasant pictures than the unfocused group.
Feldman, Greeson and Senville, 2010	190 female undergraduates new to meditation, randomly given 15 minutes of mindful breathing, progressive muscle relaxation or loving-kindness meditation	Mindful breathing led to more "decentering", which the authors define as viewing inner experience with more objectivity, and repetitive thoughts were less tied to negative reactions.
Hasenkamp et al., 2012	14 meditators doing breath-focused meditation in a brain scanner, pressing a button whenever they noticed the mind had wandered	Brain activity followed the cycle of the practice: default-mode regions during mind wandering, the salience network on noticing it, and executive regions while returning to the breath and staying there. The pattern varied with lifetime meditation experience. The study maps the practice; it does not test a benefit.
Levinson et al., 2014	Four studies, more than 400 people in all, using breath counting as a measure of mindfulness	Skill in counting breaths went with more awareness of one's own mind, less mind wandering and better mood. In a randomised online study, four weeks of breath-counting practice improved mindfulness and reduced mind wandering, compared with working-memory training or none.
Oswal, Jagtap and Dasarwar, 2026	Anapana as taught in Maharashtra's schools: two 8th-grade classes at one school in Pune, 10 minutes a school day	Sustained attention improved more in the practising class by the end of the year. Pupils' psychological well-being scores did not improve significantly; one measure of adjustment rose more by mid-year. The classes were not randomly assigned, 72 pupils completed every assessment, and two of the three authors work at the Vipassana Research Institute.

Two limits matter. First, none of these studies measured long-term health, and two of them tested a single 15-minute session, a long way from a 10-day course. Second, much of the wider research on "breathing" tests a different practice: a 2018 systematic review by Zaccaro and colleagues covered slow-breathing techniques, in which people deliberately breathe fewer than ten times a minute. Ānāpāna as most of the traditions above teach it observes the natural breath rather than slowing it (Sunlun's strong breathing is the exception), so findings about breath control do not carry over.

Research on Vipassana courses as a whole is summarised in what research says about Vipassana, and the school study is described in more detail in Vipassana for students. Breath meditation is not a medical treatment: anyone with a physical or mental health condition should talk to a doctor, and to the course organisers before an intensive retreat. A short daily sit is very different from an intensive silent retreat. For what can happen on long retreats, and what the research says, read difficult experiences on meditation retreats.