The inner life
Anapanasati
Direct answer
Anapanasati: Anapanasati, Pali for mindfulness of breathing in and out, is the Buddha's breath meditation, set out in sixteen steps in the Anapanasati Sutta.
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At a glance
- Also called
- mindfulness of breathing
- Found in
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Related
- Breath Awareness, Mindfulness, Vipassana, Samatha
Anapanasati, Pali for mindfulness of breathing in and out, is the Buddha's breath meditation, set out in sixteen steps in the Anapanasati Sutta.
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What does anapanasati mean?
Anapanasati joins three Pali words: ana, breathing in, apana, breathing out, and sati, mindfulness. The practice is to know the breath as it is, long or short, without controlling it, and to let that knowing widen. The discourse that teaches it lays out sixteen steps in four groups of four: the body, feelings, the mind, and the nature of things.
Anapanasati is among the most widely taught meditation objects in Buddhism. Theravada teachers use it for both calm and insight, and the breath counting of Zen and the breath anchor of secular mindfulness courses descend from it.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Meditation.
What sets Anapanasati apart
What sets anapanasati apart from other breath work is its refusal to manage the breath, and its claim to be enough on its own. The discourse says that the sixteen steps, fully developed, fulfil the four establishments of mindfulness and the seven factors of awakening. The steps are also written in an unusual form: each is a pair, breathing in and breathing out, so the instruction never leaves the rhythm it describes.
- Source: Anapanasati Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 118
- Structure: sixteen steps in four tetrads: body, feelings, mind, dhammas
- First step: knowing a long breath as long and a short breath as short
- Place of attention: the nostrils or upper lip in the Visuddhimagga
- Modern manual: Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, Mindfulness with Breathing
Often mistaken for something else: Pranayama changes the breath on purpose; anapanasati changes nothing about the breath and trains only the knowing of it.
The story behind Anapanasati
The method is taught in the Anapanasati Sutta, number 118 of the Majjhima Nikaya, a collection first written down in Sri Lanka around the first century BCE after centuries of recitation. Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga explained it in the fifth century with stages of counting and following. In the twentieth century the Thai monk Buddhadasa taught all sixteen steps as a complete path.
Why Anapanasati matters
Anapanasati shows that breath meditation was taught as a full course with a sequence, more than a calming trick, and it gives each stage a name.
How to read Anapanasati
Meditators name it when the breath is the chosen object, and teachers use its four groups to say where in the sequence an instruction belongs.
Anapanasati in practice: an example
Before a difficult call, someone feels three breaths at the nostrils, noticing only that the second was shorter than the first.
Where readings of Anapanasati go wrong
The breath is observed, never forced; people who find that watching the breath raises anxiety are usually given another object.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Aliases
- anapanasati meditation, mindfulness of breathing, anapanasati sutta, anapanasati meaning, sixteen steps of anapanasati
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What does anapanasati mean?
Mindfulness of breathing in and out. The Pali word joins ana (in-breath), apana (out-breath) and sati (mindfulness), and names both the practice and the discourse that teaches it.
What are the sixteen steps of anapanasati?
They are sixteen instructions in four groups. The first four attend to the breath and body, the next four to feelings such as joy, the third four to the mind, and the last four to impermanence and letting go.
Is anapanasati the same as pranayama?
No. Pranayama, from the yoga traditions, deliberately lengthens, holds or shapes the breath. Anapanasati leaves the breath alone and trains attention on it as it comes.
