Page "Anapanasati" Paragraph 97

As Batchelor noted, however, in other traditions, particularly the Kagyu and Nyingma, mindfulness based on ānāpānasmṛti practice is considered to be quite profound means of calming the mind to prepare it for the higher practices of Dzogchen and Mahamudra.

For the Kagyupa, in the context of mahāmudrā, ānāpānasmṛti is thought to be the ideal way for the meditator to transition into taking the mind itself as the object of meditation and generating vipaśyanā on that basis.

The prominent contemporary Kagyu / Nyingma master Chogyam Trungpa, echoing the Kagyu Mahāmudrā view, wrote, " your breathing is the closest you can come to a picture of your mind.

It is the portrait of your mind in some sense.

. The traditional recommendation in the lineage of meditators that developed in the Kagyu-Nyingma tradition is based on the idea of mixing mind and breath.

" The Gelukpa allow that it is possible to take the mind itself as the object of meditation, however, Zahler reports, the Gelukpa discourage it with " what seems to be thinly disguised sectarian polemics against the Nyingma Great Completeness and Kagyu Great Seal meditations.