Search results for: "The Breath"

  1. Page 131
  2. Guarding Against Trouble
     … You try to be mindful of the breath and you analyze what’s going well, what’s not going well with the breath. If you find that something’s not going well, then you do your best to change it. If it’s going well you do your best to maintain it. That’s persistence as a factor for awakening. When you do it … 
  3. Treasures Beyond Death
     … It’s the breath that keeps us alive. While we have it, let’s make the most use of it—because it’s not always going to be there. This is the basic message of the Buddha’s teachings on heedfulness. When someone has passed away, on the one hand, we do what we can to honor the memory of the person who’s … 
  4. The Analytical Mind
     … So why bother? If you want something that’s really pleasant, you can get to know the breath. In other words, you learn how to think your way into stillness. Use your powers of analysis for the purpose of training the mind. And if you have trouble getting into the body, think about those questions that Dogen used to ask. Here’s another one … 
  5. Hypocrisy
     … So as you sit here and meditate, keep careful watch over anything that might pull you away from the breath. Once you notice, drop it immediately. The quicker you are, the more solid your mindfulness will become, the more solid your awareness will become. Your concentration will grow stronger. Just beware of these little things, the mind states that eat away at the concentration … 
  6. Ugly Body, Happy Mind
     … So when you can get the mind concentrated—focusing on the breath, getting some gladness out of the calm—see if you can also get some gladness out of the insight that comes when you contemplate the things that have tied you down for who knows how long. As Ajaan Fuang pointed out, the things that we lust after, the things that we desire … 
  7. Training the Committee
     … As we’re sitting here focusing on the breath, sometimes there comes a sense of frustration. The mind is not willing to settle down. Or sometimes it’s just not simply in the mood to meditate. This is where it’s convenient to think about the mind as not being just one entity. There are lots of minds in there. It’s like a … 
  8. Contentment
     … It has to be something that really intrigues you, captures your imagination, so that the mind in all its spare moments gravitates to the breath, to whatever your meditation object is. Once you get the mind into this kind of direction, then you begin to see a lot more clearly where the defilements of the mind are. Most people just wander around aimlessly, saying … 
  9. Making an Effort
     … The potential for true happiness is right here, staying focused on the breath. Once you get skilled at it, you realize it’s much easier, it takes much less effort, much less frantic energy, and the results are more lasting. You’ve got a skill inside that you can depend on. With the normal skills we have in terms of looking at this thing … 
  10. The Advantages of Many Selves
     … Like being with the breath: Sometimes sitting here meditating, trying to get the mind calm, is not all that satisfying. It’s not going the way you want it. Well, think of other things you can do that would be satisfying. This is why the training is a full training. It’s not just a sitting-with-your-eyes-closed training. It’s training … 
  11. A Full Life
     … When you see that you’ve been able to get past where you might ordinarily not be able to stay with the breath, but that you were able to stick with it, take joy in that. Take joy in developing your skills. The Buddha says also to delight in seclusion—the opportunity you have to focus direct attention on your mind with a minimum … 
  12. The Right Focal Length
     … What’s going on with this breath? What is the mind doing with this breath? Is it staying with the breath? Or is it fabricating all kinds of issues, developing all kinds of problems, long commentaries on this, that, and the other thing? The reason we have that reflection on the requisites—food, clothing, shelter, and medicine—is to remind you that you have … 
  13. No Slivers in the Heart
     … We’ve got the breath. We’ve got the mind. All the qualities that the Buddha said led to his own** **awakening—resolution, ardency, heedfulness—are qualities we have to some extent. And they’re all open to us to be developed. It’s like a vast empty continent with lots and lots and lots of land, enough land for everybody to develop what … 
  14. Giving & Taking Time
     … This is why Ajaan Lee’s teachings on how to find a sense of well-being with the breath are so pertinent. They give you the energy you need. And it’s not just the sense of well-being. The other aspect is to learn how to ask questions, be curious. Take an interest in what’s going on right now. If you focus … 
  15. Karma Storms
     … You read about all the stages of concentration you’d like to try out—the first jhana, second jhana, third, fourth, up through the formless ones—and yet you have trouble staying with the breath at all. Well, find a theme that you can stay with. If you can’t be with the whole body, find one small part of the body and stay … 
  16. Ready to Evacuate
     … And then getting your mind into concentration is actual practice in doing this, letting go of everything that’s not relevant to the breath right now, and seeing how well you can stick with that determination. These are the four qualities that support your strength of discernment—the discernment that realizes that wealth doesn’t lie in having lots of things or lots of … 
  17. Location, Location
     … You’re going to stay here with the breath and you’re going to watch over it to make sure it doesn’t move. And, of course, it will move, but you want to be alert to its movements. You’re beginning to understand: This is what craving does. It focuses here, delights now here, then delights over there someplace else—it’s pretty … 
  18. You Can Do It
     … You start focusing on the breath and you give into all the voices that say, “Who are you to be meditating?” Think of the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree. That was one of the questions apparently that Mara asked him: “Who are you to become Buddha? Who do you think you are?” Tradition has it that the Buddha touched the ground, and the … 
  19. Compassion for People on Fire
     … tight places, tense places, places where the breath energy doesn’t flow easily. You have to figure out how to relax them, how to work through them, how to work around them if necessary. It may sound like a lot of thinking, and it is, but it’s thinking engaged in preparing your place to settle down. It’s like moving into a house … 
  20. On Top of Your Actions
     … We want to get down to the breath. But sometimes there are other things in the way, so we have to clear them out first. Some of the problems might come from things you did or said in the course of the day. You can’t go back and undo them, but you can make up your mind, “Okay, I recognize that that was … 
  21. The Gift of Spiritual Materialism
     … If you’re sitting here wondering about what you’re going to do tomorrow, wondering about what happened today, thinking about things that are not related to the breath, that’s not much of a gift. Try to develop the state of mind that you’d be happy and proud to present to somebody else. There are a couple of stories related to this … 
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