Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Helping Yourself by Helping Others
     … If you can appreciate your skill—when you develop just the right touch as you adjust the breath, and you learn how to enjoy that—the meditation becomes much more pleasant, goes deeper into the heart. The Buddha talks about trying to develop a sense of ease, a sense of fullness or refreshment in the concentration. Sometimes it’s there but we don’t … 
  3. Right View about Right View
     … What can you make constant here? What sensations can you develop in the body that are constant even as the breath flows in, the breath flows out? How do you make them easeful, pleasant? How do you get this under your control? This is an area to which you don’t apply the three perceptions. The same when you think about kamma. There’s … 
  4. Fear
     … being mindful of the breath, keeping it in mind; being alert to the breath, watching what’s happening, making whatever adjustments are needed so that the mind can settle down. That gives rise to the next strength, which is concentration. Once the mind settles down, it can start seeing things clearly for what they are. In particular, it begins to see that through clinging … 
  5. Goodwill for the Whole Committee
     … Get the mind to settle down with the breath. Try to be here with the body and get your awareness immersed in the body so that it’s not flowing out. As for any voices that come up in the mind, remember, they’re activities. They’re not really people. You’ll notice certain personalities. They either help or hinder you with the meditation … 
  6. Equanimity Isn’t Apathy
     … But he doesn’t teach Rahula to be apathetic about the breath, saying, well, just accept whatever breathing there is. Part of the instructions is to train yourself to breathe in such a way that you’re sensitive to the whole body, that you experience pleasure, that you experience rapture. These are trainings—things you have to will to happen. So equanimity doesn’t … 
  7. Your Mind is Lying to You
     … Try to keep the mind in position with the breath or just with the sense of the body in the present moment, staying outside of your thought-worlds. And remember the old principle, Don’t believe everything you think. Because it’s very rarely that we fall for just raw desire. Desires have their reasons. This was an old problem in ancient philosophy. Plato … 
  8. Mental Movements
     … If your focus, for instance, is on a physical pain, ask yourself, “Okay, which part here is the physical pain, and which part is mental pain?” If you can’t see the distinction right away, use the breath to deal with it. If the way you breathe changes the pain, okay, that’s the physical element in the pain. But as you work with … 
  9. Analyzing Anger
     … So this is how the breath meditation connects to learning to understand your mind, to understand the processes of fabrication, so that you can do something about your lust, your anger, your jealousy, and all the other qualities that seem to have so much flavor but are really bad for you. You learn to appreciate the flavor that the Buddha is recommending, which is … 
  10. Hold onto the Breath
    Earlier this year I was giving a talk back East, and I pointed out the fact that in terms of the four noble truths, the first noble truth is basically the clinging. We cling to the five aggregates, and the clinging itself is the suffering. Then, later on in the talk, I mentioned that there’s got to be some clinging in the path … 
  11. Seven Facets of Discernment
     … So even though, as we meditate, we’re trying to stay focused on the breath in the present moment, we’re also thinking about why we’re doing this—what will be for our benefit now and into the future—and of lessons we’ve learned from the past. If something comes up in the present moment, you don’t just sit there with … 
  12. Defeatism? - Anything But
     … Every time you’ve got a chance, you keep coming back to the breath. That kind of persistence is going to pay off. But simple persistence on its own is not enough. You can’t take nibbana by storm. You need the remaining two bases for power, too, such as being intent. You focus really carefully on what you’re doing and what results … 
  13. The Brahmaviharas Are Not Enough
     … For instance, you focus on the breath—ardent, alert and mindful. You stay focused on the breath in and of itself, and you put aside any greed or distress with reference to the world. The quality of ardency is where the discernment starts coming in, as you try to do this skillfully and really analyze where the suffering is. This active part of meditation … 
  14. Staying on Track
     … The Buddha came out of retreat, noticed that there are a lot fewer monks around, so called the remaining monks together and told them, when anything unskillful comes up in the mind as you meditate, or if the meditation is aggravating unskillful thoughts, switch back to the breath. Then he listed the sixteen steps of breath meditation, in which you don’t just sit … 
  15. Perfections as Priorities
    Perfections as Priorities August 21, 2008 We sit here focused on the breath, mindful of the breath, alert. We want to make sure we’re not just mindful and alert for a few breaths and then off someplace else. We want to stay mindful and alert for the whole hour. And then at the end of the hour when you get up, you want … 
  16. Endurance
     … So, learn how to appreciate what you’ve got with the breath. Appreciate the opportunity to get the mind quiet. Give yourself something positive to focus on. Those are the first two steps. The second two have to do with mental fabrications: feelings and perceptions. This is the stage of the practice where you look into the perceptions you hold around things, like the … 
  17. Your Desire to Practice
     … You’re seeing the breath not only at the nose, but you’re also beginning to learn how to sense the breath in the whole body. When there’s a feeling of pleasure, you learn how to feel it not only in one or two spots but let it spread throughout the body. If there are feelings of pain, you learn how to cut … 
  18. Refuge in the Dhamma
     … But you’re choosing to stay with the breath—at least that’s the initial intention. Now, other intentions may come up, but your question then is, “What are you going to do with the other intentions? Are you going to maintain your original intention or are you going to let yourself get sideswiped and sent off to some other direction?” You’ve got … 
  19. Is ‘I Am’ the Problem?
     … Especially with the concentration, as you begin to gain a sense of mastery over how you breathe, how you perceive the breath, how you can play with the breath energies in the body, how you can figure out how to get the mind to get more and more still as you peel away the various layers of concentration: There’s a real joy that … 
  20. Motivation
     … One of the reasons we work with the breath is to give you an inducement, a reason to want to meditate. If the meditation is dry, then you’re going to look for your moisture someplace else. You’re going to look for your flavor someplace else. But if the meditation can be interesting—in the sense of giving rise to a sense of … 
  21. Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt)
     … You’re finding that there is a sense of well-being that can come simply from sitting here focusing on the breath, allowing the breath to get comfortable, allowing that sense of ease and well-being to spread through the body. As you get more skilled at it, you find that you can tap into it whenever you need it. Then you can turn … 
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