Mindfulness of Breath, is the classic mindfulness meditation since ancient times, it would seem. It is considered one of the ‘body’ meditations in ancient Buddhism, and the old scriptures capture mentions of various supernormal powers, and attainments which were accessed by the Indian ascetics predating the Buddha. These were ‘divine eye’ a paranormal ability to see the movements of the gods, upon which entire philosophies grew around. Also the leader Nigantanataputta and his followers were able to reach the third jhana. The Buddha’s original teachers Uddakaramaputta and Alarakalama may have also used mindfulness of breath, but not clearly recorded. It is known that he tried various extreme breath controlling (now known as Prana) methods when he was trying to find enlightenment, which he later abandoned in the original form, but maybe present in a subtle way, as mentioned in ‘guiding the breath’ in the Mindfulness of breath sutra.
