A Word Carried on the Breath

Buddho is a single word, a form of the title Buddha, the awakened one, used as a meditation word in the Theravada tradition, especially in the Thai forest lineage and related schools. The practitioner divides it across the breathing, silently forming one syllable on the in-breath and the other on the out-breath, so that the word becomes a means of gathering and steadying the mind, joining the recollection of the Buddha to the natural rhythm of breathing. It belongs to the practice of buddhanussati, the recollection of the Buddha, one of the traditional subjects of meditation, here reduced to a single repeated word that both calms the mind and keeps the qualities of the Buddha before it. Widely taught by twentieth-century forest masters as a simple and accessible entry into meditation, buddho is used by monastics and lay practitioners alike, valued for the ease with which it can be carried through the day as well as in formal sitting.