How to practice Mindfulness of Breathing From the Beginning

While you control your breathing or focus to your whole body, you losing to focus the breath at nose's tip point. So the right practice is not control your breath or focus to your whole body, but just discerns your breath at the nose's tip point. And do not focus the nose's tip or nose's tip touching, just focus on the entire breath that touching at only nose's tip, not whole respiratory:

The ānāpānassati-pabba is sequences of practice:

1. Monitoring the breath:

"Breathing in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long.'

2. Then the breath going to be fainter and shorter:

Or breathing in short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he discerns, 'I am breathing out short.'

3. Then the breath maybe disappear because of the practitioner's weak mindfulness, breath still going on but he can't see it. So he has to train his mindfulness to be stronger mindful on fainter and shorter breath by making more focus on breath's touching point, the tip of nose:

He trains himself, 'I must sensitively discerns the entire breathing when I will breathe' He trains himself, 'I must sensitively discerns the entire breathing when I will breathe.'

He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming breath.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming breath.'

For more the tricks of 1st step, when the practitioner forget to focus on breath, the 2nd step, when the breath disappear, you can see in the path of purification, ānāpānassatikathā, CH. VIII (9) Mindfulness of Breathing 259.

There is a trick in mahāsatipaṭṭhānasutta ānāpānapabba's commentary, too.

Note 1: Touching is not breath. Breath appear because of breath touching at nose's tip. So, the practitioner focusing on only breath at only nose's tip, not on touching or nose's tip.

Note 2: Also, breath appear at the whole respiratory, such as throat or lung, but don't focus on it, because the practitioner practicing concentration meditation, so too much breath touching point will make the practitioner distraction.