Search results for: "The Breath"

  1. Page 127
  2. Possessiveness
     … You focus on your breath; you talk to yourself about the breath to adjust it in ways that make it a good place to be; you focus on perceptions of the breath and perceptions of the mind that allow you to settle down with feelings of pleasure and ease. That’s what right resolve does: It takes the knowledge of right view and uses … 
  3. Inner Discontent
     … You may wonder, “What am I doing here, just working with the breath, keeping my mind focused on this one little thing, when there are so many bigger issues in life?” Well, you need a mind well trained in order to deal with those bigger issues. Remind yourself of that. You need more mindfulness, more alertness. So you just keep coming back to the … 
  4. Wealth Worth Holding Onto
     … a mind that can be still, a mind that can be solid, that can develop a sense of well-being inside simply by being with the breath. And then as the breath gets more and more subtle, the mind can be with itself and can be sufficient for itself. The same with discernment: To gain discernment, you’ve got to give up some things … 
  5. Investing in Noble Wealth
     … developing goodwill in your breath so that you can embody a sense of goodwill; developing compassion in the breath. empathetic joy, equanimity around the breath, so that when you start extending these attitudes to other people, they really are embodied. They’re not just words. That’s wealth for the mind as well, that understanding. This is where discernment comes in. It comes in … 
  6. Warrior Knowledge
     … Learn how to put a question mark next to them, saying, “I wonder if that’s really true? Maybe I can look into it some other time.” Then put the issue aside and go back to work, focusing on the breath. As the mind gets more and more quiet and still, you begin to see these voices more clearly, and other voices that have … 
  7. Seeds of Becoming
     … There’s the breath, which is the physical fabrication; then there’s directed thought and evaluation, which are verbal fabrications; and then there are feelings and perceptions, which are mental fabrications. These are the basic building blocks from which you create this world, the world of a concentrated mind. You use your powers of directed thought and evaluation to work out the disturbances, to … 
  8. A Slave to Craving
     … You focus here on the breath, you become acquainted with the breath to the point where you realize that you can breathe in all kinds of ways, and some of the ways are really gratifying, physically and mentally. It feels good to breathe in, feels good to breathe out. The more intense the pleasure that comes from this, the more the mind is willing … 
  9. Sense Pleasures & Sensuality
     … The absorption you get in when you’re fully inhabiting the body, the sense of ease that comes with the breath, the sense of fullness that comes with the breath as you allow it to spread throughout the whole body: When you have this alternative pleasure, you learn how to cultivate it, enjoy it, and then you can use it for getting the mind … 
  10. Up for the Challenge
     … Try to breathe in a way where you’re aware of the whole body and notice the effect that the breath has on the body. Breathe in a way that feels refreshing, feels pleasant, and then allow those feelings of pleasure and refreshment to settle down. Allow the breath to settle down. There’s some allowing here but there’s also some directing. You … 
  11. Self-Control
     … You’re sitting here with the breath, and nothing outside is happening at all, but you find the mind wandering out of control. If that’s the way your mind is, how can you trust it not to go wandering way out of control when there are really negative things outside? You’ve got to work on this habit. When mind wanders off, you … 
  12. The Path of Adventure
     … relax, relax, relax—so that when the breath comes in, that part of the body doesn’t get pushed around. The breath goes out, that part of the body doesn’t get squeezed. After a while it’ll begin to develop a sense of fullness. That fullness, if you allow to grow, turns into rapture. This takes skill. It takes time to develop the … 
  13. Strong-hearted
    When you focus your attention on the breath, you’re focusing on something that only you can know—how you feel the breathing from inside, how you feel your awareness from inside—because this is where the problem is, and this is where the solution will be found. The problem is that we act in unskillful ways. We let greed, aversion, and delusion take … 
  14. Two Guardian Meditations
     … And sometimes the breath just doesn’t cut it. That’s when it’s good to know other meditation topics as well. When the Buddha taught breath meditation to his son, Rāhula, he didn’t start right out with the sixteen steps. He had Rāhula contemplate the four elements. Think about it. Your body is composed of what? The same thing as the dirt … 
  15. Resources for Endurance
     … How are you focusing on the breath? What happens when you focus on the breath in specific parts of the body? Which parts seem to give the best results? The conception of where you are in the body, or what kind of breathing is good for the body: You’ve got to check those by looking at the results. You also have to take … 
  16. Stepping Out of the Waves
     … This is where it’s good to be sensitive to the breath energy in your body, because as that wave comes over you, it’s going to have an effect on the body as well. A certain amount of tension will build up. It might be in your hands; it might be in your feet. Different people find that it builds up in different … 
  17. The Wisdom of Tenacity
     … You focus on the breath, and there you are. The maintaining is what’s hard. You go shooting past the breath off in the other direction to something else. Then you come shooting past it again. It’s like a little kid running into the house, grabbing a sandwich, and running back out again, and then finding that he’s dropped the sandwich as … 
  18. Sorting Yourselves Out
     … For the time being you want some space here inside so that you really can settle down and the members of the committee that do want to settle down will have a chance to get a sense of ease and well-being with the breath. Which means you can’t just grab on to the breath and force it. You want to simply allow … 
  19. Responsible
     … In other words, take the breath with you as you go through the day, so that the restraint is not onerous—you don’t feel hemmed in. This is one of the big problems as we go through the day. We’re very strict with ourselves and then, after a while, part of the mind rebels. We feel, “Oh, maybe the mind needs some … 
  20. Who Are You Trying to Please?
     … The mind is totally with, say, the breath, or any of the formless states. You can drop the concerns of being in the wilderness. When you’ve settled down, it’s just you and the breath. Or as the Buddha recommends in that particular sutta, you hold on to the perception of earth. Everything solid has earth. The trees are earth. The Earth is … 
  21. Ways to Think
     … So an important part of the meditation is, on the one hand, gaining a solid center for the mind, as when you focus it on the breath. Another important part, though, consists of these reflections we have. They help you think your way through difficult emotions, difficult situations. Which is why the reflections are an important part of the meditation, why we have the … 
  22. Load next page...