Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. To Discern Suffering
     … Working with the breath energy, learning to perceive the body as composed of breath energy, that’s all form. There’s also the perception that holds you there. So those are two of the aggregates. Then as you stay with the breath you analyze it, adjust it, so that it’s a good breath to be with, the mind can settle down. That analysing … 
  3. Standing Outside Your Thoughts
     … There is a certain amount of energy that goes into the concentration, but, once the mind settles down, there’s also the ability to relax into the breath, relax into your sense of the body right here, so you want to extend that relaxed state even further. When you get sensitive to the breathing, you begin to notice that when a thought comes into … 
  4. The Need for Agency
     … You’re sitting here focusing on the breath. Other thoughts may come into the mind, but for the time being you say, “Nope, not going there.” You do your best to make the breath interesting and to make the skill of meditation interesting—to get some satisfaction, not only out of the comfort of the breath, but also out of the fact that you … 
  5. Goodwill & Heedfulness
     … There are times when you need to develop goodwill in order to just be able to settle down with the breath, and other times where you need to work with the breath so the goodwill has a felt sense of well-being inside. So you practice these things together. If you find the breath meditation is getting dry, stop and remind yourself why you … 
  6. The Wisdom of Self-regulation
     … So for the time being as you’re sitting here meditating, any thought that has to do with staying with the breath: Take that as a skillful thought. Any thought that wants to pull you away. Take that as something unskillful. There are relative levels of skill in both cases, because sometimes the thoughts that tell you to stay with the breath shout at … 
  7. Will Meditation Make You Grim & Dull?
     … Try to make the sense of the breath as refreshing as you can. You don’t want to have just a sense of equanimity as you go through life. You want to have a sense of positive enjoyment in how it feels to have a body. One of the reasons you work with the breath is so that you feel comfortable inside your body … 
  8. Non-Reactive Judgment
     … You focus on the breath: bodily fabrication. You talk to yourself about the breath to make it comfortable: verbal fabrication. You hold perceptions in mind that allow the breath to give rise to a feeling of ease: mental fabrication. It’s by getting hands-on experience with these processes that you can do them well, and only when you do them well can you … 
  9. Trading Up
     … You stay simply with the breath in and of itself, the mind in and of itself, as you’ve got it right here. When things are stripped down like this, you find that the sense of well-being that can be developed as you stay focused can grow really, really intense. Establishing mindfulness, you get into concentration, thinking about the breath, evaluating the breath … 
  10. The Fabrication of Pain
     … This is where you work with the breath. You find a part of the body that’s not affected by the pain and you focus there. If the pain is in the knee, let it have the knee for the time being. If it’s in the arm, let it have the arm. You’re going to be someplace else, where you can develop … 
  11. A Heart Wider than the World
     … What’s happening right here with the breath, at the mind? What’s happening in the mind, right at the breath? Looking at the details, because the details will grow into larger things. You’re making your choices. That present karma, where you have the freedom of choice: It’s made right here. So you want to see this point right here, really clearly … 
  12. Seeing Distinctions
     … Is the water flowing from the direction of the first river or is it flowing in the direction of the second? In the same way, you make up your mind to stay with the breath. Any intention that pulls you off the breath is something you don’t want right now. Those intentions will have their blandishments, they’ll have their attractions, but for … 
  13. The Buddha’s Shoulds
     … The mindfulness means that you keep your frame of reference in mind — as when we’re keeping the breath in mind right now. The alertness means seeing what’s happening in the present moment, seeing if you really are with the breath, if the mind is settling down well with the breath, and catching it when you’ve forgotten. You’re trying to establish … 
  14. On Deserving to Be Happy
     … He figured out that thinking of the breath energy going through the body makes it a lot easier for that well-being to spread. So he used his ingenuity. That’s how he got out of the forest. After three months of working with the breath like this, he was able to walk out from the place he had his heart attack, and live … 
  15. Willing to Question Yourself
     … What way of relating to the breath is going to be helpful? How do you relate to the breath in a way that allows the mind to settle down? How do you perceive the breath—in other words, what are the images you hold in mind about what’s happening when you breathe? What kind of breathing feels good? What kind of breathing is … 
  16. Wisdom Through Training
    When you focus on the breath, know when it’s coming in and when it’s going out, and keep watch over your mind at the same time, noticing if it’s staying with the breath or not. If you catch it slipping off, bring it back. Slips off again, bring it back again. Slips off ten times, a hundred times, bring it back … 
  17. A Mind Like Earth
     … You focus on the breath, and there it is, it feels good. You think about it spreading around the body and it does. Other times it doesn’t happen so quickly. Sometimes it can take years for you to figure things out about the breath in the body. But the important thing is that you not think about how much time it’s going … 
  18. The Return of Chickens from Hell
     … So try to bring the mind to the breath in a way that feels good. Notice where you feel the breathing and whether it’s comfortable. If it’s not comfortable, you can try changing it in different ways until you find something you like. Then try to stick with it. Try to maintain that sense of well-being all the way through the … 
  19. Getting Your Head Around the Goal
     … Instead of focusing on our ideas of awakening, we’re focusing on the actual sensation of the breath. Instead of trying to figure out the goal, we keep coming back to the breath, exploring and figuring out what we’ve got here. It’s through these exercises of mindfulness and concentration that the mind’s powers of perception can grow. When the mind is … 
  20. Metta Metacognition
     … When you focus on the breath, you want to be alert to what you’re doing, alert to the results. As you do that, you’re learning about your mind, all the many minds you have. This is one thing you learn. It’s not mentioned in the Canon, but you realize you have many, many opinions in there, and each of them identifies … 
  21. Respect, Confidence, & Patience
     … Sometimes you need to focus on the length of the breath; other times you focus on spreading the breath throughout the body; other times you have to be very careful about where you’re focused in the body. All of these are component factors. Ajaan Fuang once noted that when someone is having trouble in concentration practice, or the concentration of the practice is … 
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