Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. A Refuge in Mindfulness
     … The best way to do that is to get the mind as still as you can with the breath, because, if you’ve been working with the breath, you tend to have certain associations with it. Breathing in a certain way will remind you, “I used to breathe in this way when I was meditating, and my mind was centered here. This sort of … 
  3. Truthfulness
     … Ajaan Fuang once made the comment in one of his Dhamma talks that you look at the breath. Is it true? Yes, it’s truly there. Then the next question is, are you true? Are you going to stick with the breath to really see what it can do? In the beginning you say, “Well, I think so.” But it’s only after practice … 
  4. Return of Wisdom for Dummies
     … Use the breath as a way of maintaining that intention so that you can associate a sense of comfort and ease and well-being inside as you stick with what you know is skillful. As you’re meditating, you reflect in the same way: You make up your mind to stick with the breath, and as you’re staying with the breath, you watch … 
  5. Disenchantment
    Try to find a sense of nourishment in the breath, because the mind needs nourishment. If it doesn’t find its food here, it’s going to go looking someplace else. As long as we’re beings, we need to feed. The Buddha pointed out that that’s the thing we all have in common: All beings depend on nutriment. As long as we … 
  6. The Buddha’s Tools
     … When you’re getting the mind into concentration, you find that you’re dealing with form, the form of the body, of the breath; feelings of pleasure and pain, neither pleasure nor pain; your perceptions: the images you hold in mind as you try to get the mind to settle down. What way of perceiving the breath, or imaging the breath to yourself, is … 
  7. Squeezing Goodness Out of the Aggregates
     … We try to get the breath so that it’s easeful. We try to get the mind so that it can stay constantly with the breath. And that requires a certain amount of control. Then Ajaan Lee goes on to say then the Buddha let go of both sides: both what was constant and inconstant; easeful and stressful; self and not-self. What you … 
  8. Three Weapons
     … You can study the breath and the mind’s relationship to the breath, and fortunately you can come to an end of your problems this way. But still, there’s a lot to see here in terms of all the fabrication that goes on in the present moment. And learning how to get fascinated here is your protection. It’s your weapon against the … 
  9. A Practice, Personal & Social
    When you focus the mind on the breath, you’re focusing on an area that nobody else can know: how you experience the breath from within, how you experience the movements of your own mind from within. People could look at you from the outside and see the rhythm of your breathing and they might notice expressions flitting across your face, but how you … 
  10. Cheerfully Ardent
     … Like with the breath: You work with long breathing for a while, then you work with short breathing. Can you make them both comfortable? How about heavy breathing, light breathing, fast, slow? Don’t just stick with one kind of breathing all the time, because you’re never going to learn anything about what your mind can do with the breath, and what you … 
  11. The Burning House
     … In the beginning, a lot of the concentration is a matter of learning how to stay with the breath, to get to the point where the mind and the breath—your awareness and the breath—seem to be one. Wherever there’s awareness, there’s breath; wherever there’s breath, there’s awareness. But you don’t want to stay at that stage. You … 
  12. Go in Brightness
     … Notice how the breath feels as it comes in and goes out. Notice what kind of breathing feels good. This is called using directed thought and evaluation. You direct your thoughts to the breath, then you evaluate the breath. Is it a good breath to settle down with? Experiment for a bit to see what varieties of breathing there are, and how the different … 
  13. Just Rightness
     … First, be really focused on the breath and then learn to step back a bit and watch not only the breath, but also the mind as it relates to the breath. That’s when you’re in the right position to observe both body and mind, to see the connections between them, and particularly to see where you’re causing unnecessary suffering. The path … 
  14. Admitting Mistakes
     … For example, while we’re sitting here looking at the breath: How’s it going? Is the breath comfortable? Is it as comfortable as it could be? Exactly what stage are you in the practice? Often we don’t even have our bearings as we’re trying to settle down. Or if things have begun to settle down, we have to look after other … 
  15. Pro-self, Pro-help
     … Is there a lack in your conviction? A lack in your persistence? In your mindfulness? How about your sense of heedfulness—the sense that this really does make a difference, the fact that you’re training your mind? It does make a difference whether you’re going to stay with the breath or not stay with the breath. Now, you have to learn how … 
  16. A Greater Happiness
     … You focus on the breath in such a way that you relate easily to the breath. It feels comfortable being with the breath coming in, with the breath going out. Allow yourself to stay there. After all, stillness is the essence of happiness. There’s another passage where the Buddha says, “There is no happiness other than peace.” What he means is that the … 
  17. The Energy You Broadcast
     … You set up the intention that you’re going to stay with the breath. Other thoughts will come in, the result of past kamma, but if you spend all your time getting engaged with those, you’ve thrown away your original intention. So you’ve got to hold to your original intention regardless, and use the energy of that intention to repel any thoughts … 
  18. Protection from Fools
     … As the Buddha pointed out, what better angle, what better perspective to have than the one that’s gained from standing right here in the present moment, right where the mind and the body meet at the breath? When you’re here, you can see what’s going on in the mind; you can see what’s going on in the body. You’re … 
  19. The Wheel of Dhamma
     … When you’re focusing on the breath, the very first question is: Is the breath comfortable or not? That’s asking you to see: When does the comfort come, and when does it go? In what ways, what kind of desire to make it comfortable actually is going to make it less comfortable? In what way do you focus the desire to make it … 
  20. Trustworthy Intentions
     … Just come back to the breath, back to the breath. Once you get better at this, then you can start looking at those questions, looking at the stories, to see what they show you about underlying impulses, desires, intentions, ways you understand things, because sometimes you have to argue with them in order to pull the mind back. They may tell you that you … 
  21. Outside the Box
     … What’s the breath going to be like tonight? What’s the shape of my mind going to be like tonight? What’s it like right now? Take stock of it. If you get a sense of where it’s out of balance, remember that you have a whole range of tools to use to bring it into balance. You could stay with the … 
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