The difference between stages one and two

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If you’ve tried the first two stages of the Mindfulness of Breathing, you’ll almost certainly have noticed that they feel very different from one another. Most people find that to be the case.

You might have enjoyed one stage more than another (although people differ about which is the most enjoyable stage).

And if you enjoyed one stage more than another, you might even have found there was one stage you really didn’t like (that’s most often the second stage, for reasons we’ll come to).

But the interesting thing is that both stages are structurally identical. How can that be! In the first stage you count after the out-breath, while in the second stage we count before the in-breath! It’s patently obvious they’re different! Let me explain.

The structure of the first stage

The first stage looks like this:
In - out - 1 - in - out - 2 - in - out - 3 - in - out - 4 - in - out - 5 etc.
The structure of the second stage

While the second stage looks like this:
1 - in - out - 2 - in - out - 3 - in - out - 4 - in - out - 5 etc.
The first two stages compared

Now, if you line both stages up, it looks like this

1 - in - out - 2 - in - out - 3 - in - out - 4 - in - out - 5 etc.
1 - in - out - 2 - in - out - 3 - in - out - 4 - in - out - 5 etc.

If your browser hasn’t scrambled that you’ll see they’re exactly the same.

So, how come they feel different?

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