Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. When You’re Discouraged
     … Some people read about “buddho, buddho, buddho” as an elementary meditation topic that you go beyond as you settle in with the breath. But sometimes you find that’s the only thing that can keep you with the breath, the only thing that keeps you anchored in the present moment. So it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Use what’s necessary. Use what … 
  3. Merit: Goodness of the Heart
     … You’re going to be less prey to your greed, aversion, and delusion—because an important part of the meditation is that when you make up your mind to stay with the breath, you’re going to have to fight off your distractions. What used to be normal thinking suddenly becomes something you’ve got to fight. It makes you more sensitive to ways … 
  4. Mindfulness of Death & the Deathless
     … You want to stay continually with the breath. Any feelers that would go out from this, you just want to cut them off. Make the breath comfortable so that it’s a good place to stay. But keep reminding yourself: You’re here in the present moment, not because the present moment is a wonderful place or because it’s the only place to … 
  5. The Escape of Discipline
     … Just being able to get the mind to settle down and be with the breath, get absorbed in the breath, and allow that sense of well-being to fill the body: You’re moving the mind from what’s called the sensual level to what’s called the level of form. Issues of the world can just drop away. You’ve got a sense … 
  6. The Role of Attachment
     … You sit down and focus on the breath, and there’s a slight sense of ease, a slight sense of relaxation. It’s not impressive, but at the very least you’ve let go of your outside entanglements. You’re just there with the breath. Right there is the potential for the first jhana: the happiness, the ease, the pleasure that comes from seclusion … 
  7. Shoulds & Ideals
     … Every time you realize you’ve slipped off away from the breath, come back, come back. Remind yourself that this is why you’re here, this is what you want to develop. Then as the mind settles down, you get excited about its settling down, and you find that that spoils it. Well, the next time it settles down, remind yourself that that’s … 
  8. Trading Up
     … I decided that the skill of meditation was what I wanted, and I found that by making the breath interesting, and treating this whole question of how to relate to the breath energy in the body a puzzle—a puzzle that I was constantly interested in, constantly learning more things about—it kept me from focusing on the difficulties. I was more interested in … 
  9. Discernment Through Ardency & Evaluation
     … Alertness is watching what’s actually going on, both with the breath, if that’s your object, and with the mind—making sure they stay connected. Ardency is the quality of doing it right, trying to be skillful, noticing when things are not going well, how you can improve them, and when they are going well, how you can maintain them and develop them … 
  10. Willing & Observing
     … You have to make up your mind that you’re going to stay here with the breath. You’re going to work on your powers of concentration. And you have to make it happen. If you don’t make it happen, it’s not going to happen on its own, These two kinds of truths have to work together. Your will has to take … 
  11. The Mind Set Tall
     … So this work we’re doing with the breath—making the breath comfortable, looking at it, to see if it’s too long, too short, bringing it back when it wanders off: This is important work. That’s why we have the chant about having respect for concentration. All too often we overlook it. It seems so ordinary. And you wonder: When you are … 
  12. Daily-Life Dhamma
     … Whatever physical pressure there may be in the body, realize that it’s simply a matter of the anger having hijacked your breath, so you take the breath back. Breathe calmly. Breathe in a way that releases a lot of the tension you’re feeling. And for all the voices that say, “Oh, they’re going to treat me like a doormat, they’re … 
  13. The Core of Experience
     … You’re holding onto the perception of the breath to give rise to a feeling of ease. You’re talking to yourself about the breath: That’s fabrication. And your consciousness is aware of all these things. This is how you take the five aggregates and make them a path. Those are some of the things you hold onto provisionally as part of the … 
  14. Metta Can Hurt
     … Some people like the breath. Some people find that the mind can settle down really well when thinking of the different parts of the body. Some like to repeat a word like buddho or dhammo or sangho, and some like the brahma-vihāras. So it’s really up to you which object you like to stay with, realizing that simple concentration is not going … 
  15. Training for Dispassion
     … There will be thoughts that come up that wander away from the breath. For the time being, nothing but thoughts about the breath are relevant, so with any desires that would pull you away from the breath, you’ve got to say No. It’s in saying No that you learn about them. The Buddha gives the example of using mindfulness to cut off … 
  16. You Are Not Redundant
     … how you focus on the breath, how you adjust the breath, how you create a sense of pleasure—a sense of rapture, even—through the way you breathe, how you get to know the way you shape your mind. Then you can shape your mind in ways that gladden it, concentrate it, release it. This is all within your power. So each of us … 
  17. Therapeutic Seclusion
     … This is why we work with the breath energies in different parts of the body, and why it’s worth your while to try to get to know what exactly the breath energy is, say, running down your arms, running down your legs, in your head, in your torso, all the different parts of the body—because once you can sense a smooth energy … 
  18. All-around Alertness
     … Think of the breath flowing all around, throughout the body, and it takes that sense of well-being all around the body as well. The reason we do this is because we want this all-around awareness. It is possible to get the mind into states of one-pointed concentration, but when you do, huge areas of your awareness are blocked-out. We’re … 
  19. True for What Purpose?
     … You focus on the breath, you talk to yourself about how the breath can be comfortable here, it can be comfortable there. There may be parts of the body that are in pain, but you don’t have to focus on them. You focus on the parts that you can make comfortable. Get them on your side. Then, once you have them on your … 
  20. Responsible for Your Actions
     … Think of the breath as refreshing the whole body. Then adjust the rhythm and texture of the breathing so that it feels just right. Experiment a bit. It’s like fixing food. You taste it and then decide if it needs more salt or less salt or this spice or that spice until you get the taste that’s just right. Because concentration is … 
  21. The Best News in the World
     … Keep your thoughts connected to the breath. Then evaluate the breath. How does it feel? You might try some long breathing for a while to see if long breathing feels good and energizing. If it does feel good, keep it up. If not, you can change. Try shorter breathing. Or in short, out long; in long, out short. Heavy, light; fast, slow; deep, shallow … 
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