Search results for: "The Breath"

  1. Page 104
  2. Straightening Out the World
     … You’re here focusing on the breath and something else comes up in the mind. You’ve got that moment where you can choose: Are you going to go with it or are you going to stay with the breath? In the beginning stages, it’s as if you don’t know what’s happening. You’re with the breath and suddenly you’re … 
  3. Part I : Basic Instructions
     … Keep the breath in mind and be alert to it as it comes in, as it goes out. Be alert to how well your mind relates to it, how you can change the way you breathe. How can you change the way you think about your breathing, so that it’s easier to stay with? If you run into pains in the body, how … 
  4. Why We Practice the Way We Do
     … When you get a sense of ease with the breath, think of the whole body breathing—all the nerves, all the blood vessels—this energy of the breath running through the whole body in this way. This allows the mind to settle down with an expansive sense of ease. Now you’ve done that by analyzing what’s going on and what can be … 
  5. One Thing Clear Through
     … You focus on the breath. You become aware of the breath energy throughout the body as you breathe in, as you breathe out. As you develop a sense of ease in the breathing, you allow that to spread so that it fills the body as well. That becomes your food on the path. But as you do this, you’re also radiating good energy … 
  6. Moods Are Not-Self
     … They sit down and focus on the breath, and they get frustrated and impatient with the breath. So the first order of business is get the mind in the right mood to be with the breath on good terms. To begin with, the Buddha recommended that you try to make your mind like earth. Think of the part of the mind that can just … 
  7. The Skills of a Hunter
     … When you’re focused on the breath, you’re bathed in the breath. Or it might be better to think about wearing your breath in the same way that you wear your skin. There was another writer who stayed with some Inuit up in Alaska one time. As he went out with them when they went hunting, he said he had the sense that … 
  8. Four Noble Truths to One
     … You have the sense of the form of the body as you’re sitting here breathing; the feelings of pleasure you’re able to give rise to; the perceptions of the breath, or whatever your object is, that hold the mind in place; the thought fabrications—the directed thought and evaluation as you try to get everything together, to get the breath snug with … 
  9. Tools of Perception
     … Your perception of the breath needs of the body begins to change as well. As you stay with the stillness of the breath, after a while the idea of holding in mind the perception of having a body sitting here: You begin to see that it places a certain amount of weight on the mind as well. So you drop it. It gets replaced … 
  10. Truth Is Where You’re True
     … It’s bored with the breath or it’s got something else it really wants to think about, so it pretends to stay with the breath for a while. In the meantime, it’s planning its escape. Like a prisoner who stays in his room when the wardens come by and who has been tunneling under the wall when the wardens aren’t looking … 
  11. Train Hopping
     … This is why we focus on the breath, to give you some place to stay inside this combination of body and mind that’s a little bit outside of the mind. That allows you to you to get some perspective on your thinking. Even though you may still be thinking about something—you are thinking about the breath—at least the thinking stays in … 
  12. Skillful Thinking
     … So you find other topics aside from the breath in the present moment to focus on. If you’re really having trouble focusing on the present, think of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Those topics help foster conviction in the path and in your own ability to practice the path. After all, the members of the noble Sangha are human beings just … 
  13. Noble Ardency
     … Just stay still with the breath until you really settle in and have a sense of being nourished by the breath, nourished by the concentration. Then you can ask yourself, “Is this really good? Could this be better?” You’re learning to be a real connoisseur of your pleasure, a real connoisseur of the breath. And as for what level of right concentration you … 
  14. Start with Yourself
     … When an emotion takes over in the mind, it’s going to have an effect on the breath, the breath will have an effect on the body, and the emotion will hijack everything. So if you see there’s an unskillful emotion arising, if there’s greed or anger or delusion, the first thing you do is stop and take stock of your breath … 
  15. Virtues & Values
     … So we focus on the breath as an anchor here in the present moment because, of all the things in the world, it’s the closest to the mind. When you’re with the breath, there’s no past breath you can watch. There’s no future breath you can watch. You’ve got to be in the present moment to be with the … 
  16. A Handful of Leaves
     … This is why we use the breath and develop the breath so that it gives rise to a sense of well-being in the present moment. We breathe in a way that feels good coming in, feels good going out. That way, you know that when physical suffering or mental anguish get bad, you’ve got a safe place to go. You don’t … 
  17. Goodwill Is Respect
     … You allow the breath. Notice that: You allow it. You can’t make yourself breathe comfortably. Sometimes, the harder you try to make it comfortable, the more you tie yourself up in knots. It’s more a matter of getting out of the way. We tend to use the breath energy in the body a lot as we think, as we go through the … 
  18. A Simple Path Through a Complex Map
     … You’re maintaining your intention to stay with the breath. In doing so, you start seeing other intentions that you might have missed before as they come up and bump into the original intention, trying to knock it off course. But you’re trying to maintain that skillful intention. As you get the mind into concentration, you’re dealing directly with things like the … 
  19. Expert’s Mind
     … This is why we focus on the breath. Of the different aspects of the body, the breath is closest to the mind. It’s most sensitive to the movements of the mind and it in turn exerts a positive or a negative influence on the mind. So it’s a good part of the body to know. Try to be aware of the whole … 
  20. Ingenuity
     … If you’re face-to-face with pain, what can you use—with these skills you’ve learned with the breath, the skills you’ve learned with concentration—to help alleviate the pain? Maybe they can’t make the pain go away, but they can at least help your mind not get upset about the pain. How can you use your discernment to figure … 
  21. Truth Without Air Quotes
     … For example, you can have an image of where the breath could flow into the body. Say there’s a pain in the back. Do you want the breath to flow through the pain from above? Through it from below? Or do you want it to go straight into the pain itself without having any other part of the body involved? That’s an … 
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