Search results for: "The Breath"

  1. Page 133
  2. The Search for Happiness
     … As you come to the breath meditation when you’re practicing generosity, virtue, and goodwill, it’s a lot easier to deal with the difficulties you’re going to face. A greater sense of your own competence will see you through a lot of those difficulties. You’ve learned that if you talk to yourself in the right way about how you do your … 
  3. The Power of the Will
     … You make up your mind to stay here with the breath. Without your making up your mind, it’s not going to happen. There may be some fluke times when the mind simply settles in, but you wouldn’t understand anything. You wouldn’t understand why causes and conditions came together at that point. But if you actively change the causes and change the … 
  4. What’s Getting in the Way
     … You breathe in, breathe out, and does the flow of energy at any point in the breath cycle put a squeeze on the hands—on any of the muscles in any part of the hand? Can you breathe in a way that doesn’t induce that squeeze? How long can you keep that up? And when you can keep it up, can you let … 
  5. Good Eating
     … It’s useful for the days when the meditation seems dry and you begin to wonder if you’re ever going to get anywhere with the breath. You can think back, “Well, I do have these good things in my background, these good actions that I’ve developed in the past.” That right there is food for the mind. It strengthens you. It gives … 
  6. Catch It in the Act
     … You get the mind with the breath, putting your awareness with at least a still spot someplace in the body so that it’s not carried away by the drift of the discussion. Then you watch from that standpoint. It may not be a very strong still point, but hey, you work with what you’ve got. Every now and then you catch yourself … 
  7. Skillful Fear
     … This is one of the reasons why we practice concentration, one of the reasons why it’s so important that we have a sense of well-being that comes as we focus inside on the breath. It takes strength to go against our immediate knee-jerk reactions and to think about the long term. So to sustain yourself as you’re waiting for the … 
  8. Bowing & Chanting
     … What do you want to do with the breath? You get to choose. What do you do to get the best results out of it, so that there’s a sense of fullness, a sense of ease, pleasure, simply through the way you breathe. How do you do that? You get to explore. So, you’re not just submitting yourself to an ironclad regimen … 
  9. Beyond Likes & Dislikes
     … Allow it to settle down on the breath, and just stay right there. Catch it if it seems to be moving off in any other direction. Bring it back. Learn how to freeze the mind at that spot. In other words, as soon as it seems to move to pick up something, just stop it, stop it, stop it, and then allow it to … 
  10. The Size of Your Eyes
     … And when you come to sit and meditate and focus on the breath, the greed and the anger and the aversion – all these other distracting things – are going to be in charge. And then it’s going to be a big battle. This doesn’t mean it’s going to be impossible to settle down, but you’re just making it that much more … 
  11. Mange in the Mind
     … You find that there’s a potential for rapture right here, just in the way you breathe, the way you approach the breath, the way you approach your experience of having a body. You can pull things this way and that, and drag them here, drag them there, but that doesn’t create rapture. Allow the body to be still, and really still as … 
  12. Reflect
     … When you practice concentration, you have to keep one object in mind, like the breath. And then you have to observe how it’s going. Is it comfortable? Is it not? How can you breathe in a way that gives rise to a sense of well-being, a sense of fullness inside? How can you maximize that sense of fullness? You have to watch … 
  13. You’ll Wish You’d Meditated More
     … What is the first thing the mind’s going to pick up as it leaves the breath? Why did it choose that? How does it get involved? What are the stages? In other words, when you leave concentration, don’t just jump out. Try to be ardent, alert, and mindful as you leave. And you’ll see things you didn’t see before. There … 
  14. Abandoning Effluents (1)
     … This is why, as we meditate, we’re focused on the process of fabrication—the breath coming in and going out, the way we talk to ourselves, the images we hold in mind, the feelings we focus on—because these fabrications are things that we’re doing. In our practice leading up to meditation, we don’t spend all that much time talking about … 
  15. Dhamma Survivalism
     … So you’ve got the breath here as your tool or as your foundation, giving you an independent place, independent source of happiness, well-being, that allows you to step outside of the unskillful things going on in your mind. It’s when you can step outside of your mind this way: That’s when you can step outside of the affairs of the … 
  16. The Problem Is Birth
     … If the breath is not appealing to you or if it’s too subtle, you can try contemplation of the different parts of the body. Just visualize the different parts—hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin, flesh—and on inside to the different organs. Visualize these things to yourself and have a sense of, say, when you’re focusing … 
  17. Mindful to Be Skillful
     … So that’s something else you want to keep in mind as you’re focused on the breath, as you’re focused on feelings, whatever your meditation theme: You always want to do it skillfully. And not just the meditation: With everything you do, that’s something to keep in mind. When you’re dealing with other people, you want to do it skillfully … 
  18. Mindful All the Way
     … Then try to stay with the breath as best you can. Stay with your present awareness as much as you can, realizing that choices will have to be made. Some people, as they approach death, just give up and let things take their course. Who knows where they’re going to end up. But if you’re determined that you want to practice the … 
  19. Clinging
     … But regardless of the form, you can feel it physically, as a tightening in the breath energy in the body. Now, the physical feeling is not the clinging itself. It’s a byproduct, but it aggravates it. You could also take it as a sign: When something moves in the mind and there’s a tightening up in the body, the mind is holding … 
  20. Framing the Body
     … If you learn how to use the body properly as an object of meditation, as a place to find some rest and well-being as you just stay with the breath, then you can take advantage of what you’ve got by using it for a higher purpose.
  21. The Intelligent Heart
     … As we’re sitting here practicing, you’re not just focusing your mind on the breath, you’re also focusing your heart. Come wholeheartedly to this—that’s one of the meanings of the word, ātāpi, or ardent—you really want to do this well. Of course, you want to be intelligent about your wants, which is why the Buddha said that discernment starts … 
  22. Load next page...