Search results for: "The Breath"

  1. Page 132
  2. Patience Is a Skill
     … When you meditate, you have to keep coming back, coming back, coming back to the breath, learning how to talk to yourself as you’re doing this. You’re trying to get the mind still, and it won’t get still. You give yourself encouragement. Tell yourself: You focus on the causes, and you keep coming back to them, coming back to them, coming … 
  3. The Courage to Set Yourself Free
     … This is why we work with the breath to make it comfortable. Then we can look at the pain simply as a phenomenon to be studied. Taking that attitude immediately changes the relationship. You’re not running away from it. You’re stopping and you’re looking at it. Like Ajaan Lee sitting under the tree, looking at the elephant, look at the pain … 
  4. The Role of the Observer
     … There’s the breath, which is bodily fabrication; directed thought and evaluation, when you set a topic in mind and then think about it, ask questions, make comments—that’s verbal fabrication. Then there are perceptions and feelings—the labels we put on things and the feeling tones we focus on—pleasant, unpleasant, neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant: Those are mental fabrications. Those are our … 
  5. Virtue, Concentration, Discernment
     … For instance, it may be focusing on the fact that the pressure you’re putting on the breath is too strong, but how does it tell you that it’s too strong? Does it tell you in a way that’s self-defeating, or in a way that’s encouraging? “Here’s a mistake you’re making, but you can undo the mistake, and … 
  6. Skillful Fears
     … the sense of well-being, the sense of rapture that can come when the whole body is permeated by breath, and the breath flows smoothly. It’s nourishing to all the parts of your body and mind. That gives you a place where you can step back from other things—both inside and out—and can look at them to see what’s really … 
  7. Goodwill & Gratitude
     … Before you focus on the breath, try goodwill for everyone. That helps to clear up any issues you may have had from the day. And it’s good to stop and think: What does it mean to have goodwill? It means that you wish that other people will create the causes for happiness for themselves, and you’re happy to see them do it … 
  8. The Perception of Space
     … reflections or perceptions to keep in mind as you get the mind in shape to be with the breath. These reflections and perceptions can be useful in all kinds of situations. One of the perceptions he taught to Rahula was make your mind like space. Nothing can be written on space. This is an image that keeps reappearing throughout the Canon. When the Buddha … 
  9. Thinking About Rebirth
    Put your focus on the breath. Put aside all the narratives about today, yesterday, last month, next month, that tend to fill up your mind. For the time being, you want to be right here. There’s no real narrative about the breath. There’s a breath coming in and there’s a breath going out. You can comment on it, but once you … 
  10. A Culture of Restraint
     … You can look at them and say, “That’s not a thought I want to follow.” When you’re used to saying No to things already, it’s easier to say No to them when you’re sitting here with your eyes closed focusing on the breath. And vice versa: When you’ve got your eyes open you can remind yourself, “I’ve been … 
  11. The Middle Way
     … Expand your imagination as to different ways you can experience the breath in the body. Explore that right here right now. That kind of pleasure doesn’t count as self-indulgent. It’s part of the path that you’re on: the middle way. Another reason why it’s important to develop this sense of pleasure is because there are times when you do … 
  12. From Compunction to Release
     … that the effort that goes into sitting here looking at the breath night, after night, after night is effort well repaid. The rewards may not be coming right away, but you’re convinced in the principle that if you train the mind, you’ll be much less likely to cause yourself suffering. So here you are, training the mind. And you’re training it … 
  13. The Community of the Wise
     … I felt I really should be spending all my time focusing on the breath, and yet issues related, ultimately, to the value of what I was doing kept coming up. So I had to deal with them. It was only in retrospect that I began to realize that that, too, was an important part of the practice. It’s not that you can ignore … 
  14. To Sustain Your Practice
     … You can hear the instructions and focus on the breath—and anybody can focus on the breath. What makes the difference is the maintaining. How do you stick with it? This question applies not only to concentration practice, but also to the practice as a whole. We live in an environment that’s not all that friendly toward Dhamma practice. It’s almost as … 
  15. Equanimity
     … But as Ajaan Lee points out, it’s really helpful when you can think of the breath energy flowing through the body, and then the pleasure goes along the breath channels, goes along with the sense of energy flowing into the arms, flowing into the legs, flowing into the head, into the torso, leading to a a sense of fullness. And as I’ve … 
  16. Sensitive in Seven Ways
     … What are your weaknesses when you sit down to meditate? Where are the places your mind tends to go that it shouldn’t go? Are you lacking in mindfulness? Are you lacking in alertness? Is the problem with the mind, or more with the body and the breath? Learn how to read yourself. Then try to compensate for your weaknesses by taking advantage of … 
  17. Responsible Conviction
     … And without the mindfulness that you develop by sticking with one thing, like the breath, it’s so easy to forget the lessons you’ve learned. So conviction here means that you’re ready to work, ready to be responsible. It’s probably the most mature attitude you can develop.
  18. Dispassion & Delight
     … Be the kind of person who wants to be with the breath at any spare moment. Have some passion for this skill that you’re working on. That’s how it develops. It’s not a tool just to give up. The Buddha’s giving us a training, and the training requires mastering some skills and enjoying the process of mastery. There should be … 
  19. Fence Me In
     … But as we fence the mind in, say, “Okay, you’re going to stay with the breath and you’re going to sit here for an hour or however long it’s going to be, and you’re going to try to gain a state of comfort and bliss, rapture.” How are you going to do that? Most people think it’s impossible. But … 
  20. A Quality of the Character
     … how to analyze things, how to focus on the breath, how to develop concentration. But it always has to be within that context of virtues. And these are best picked up by being around people who are virtuous. Part of those instructions to Rahula was that if you saw you’d made a mistake, you talk it over with someone who’s more advanced … 
  21. Taking the Long View
     … Every time the thought comes up that you could go away from the breath, you’ve got to realize, “Okay, this is exactly how rebirth happens. If I’m not good at sticking with what I know is right, then who knows what side paths the mind will take.” So try to be really on top of yourself, watching yourself carefully. One of the … 
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