Search results for: "The Breath"

  1. Page 139
  2. Changing the Pleasure Equation
     … When the mind can settle down with the breath, try to get engaged with this investigation of the present moment: What is this breath energy in the body? What can it be used for? It can be used for a lot of things. It can help with pain management. It can soothe you when you’re feeling disturbed or irritated. It can provide you … 
  3. From Darkness to Light
    We sit here watching our breath because the breath is very close to the mind, and the mind is where the problem is. The problem, of course, is that we’re causing ourselves suffering through our own actions. Even though our intentions are done for the sake of happiness, pleasure, and well-being, they end up causing all kinds of trouble. That’s because … 
  4. Bodies & Minds Outside
     … When you focus on the breath, you’re focusing on the body. When you practice jhana, you fill the body with pleasure and rapture so that you can settle down comfortably in it. When you do walking meditation, you’ve got to use your body. To listen to the Dhamma, you need the ears. So you realize that the best use for this body … 
  5. Control from Within
     … This is why we practice sticking with the breath, developing as much mindfulness and alertness as we can, and keeping ourselves inspired to stick with the path, as it’s going to have its difficulties. The Buddha offers us different ways of finding that inspiration, and it’s up to us to learn how to use them. We can reflect on the Buddha, the … 
  6. The Joy of the Battle
     … In other words, you’re sitting here meditating, focusing on the breath. You have visions of nice states of concentration: bliss, ease, expansive full-body awareness. Yet you find yourself doing battle with the hindrances. Sensual desire comes up, ill will can come up, sloth and torpor, restlessness and anxiety, doubt and uncertainty. Instead of blissing out, you find yourself doing battle with these … 
  7. Protest Your Virtue & Right View
     … What we’re trying to do when we meditate is to step back and take a stance with the breath, and then look at the mind to see: How do you process things? How do you fabricate things? This is why, when the Buddha gave breath meditation instructions, he talked about bodily fabrication and mental fabrication. Bodily fabrication is the way you breathe. Mental … 
  8. Perceptions of Earth & Space
     … When the breath is uncomfortable, you don’t get upset. You watch it for a while and try to figure out, “Why is it uncomfortable?” We’re making the mind like earth not so it can be just a clod of dirt sitting there, but you want to have the kind of solidity in the mind that can look at a situation with enough … 
  9. A New Framework
     … clearly than if you hadn’t made that promise. The same principle applies to concentration. You make up your mind that you’re going to stay with one object, one preoccupation: the breath. Once you promise yourself that, then you try to stick with it. Heedful, ardent, and resolute. In other words, resolutely trying to stick with this one thing. Ardent in being really … 
  10. When Things Aren’t Going Well
     … So take some lessons from the breath because it’s consistent. It keeps coming in and going out whether you pay attention to it or not, whether you like it or not. It’s there. It keeps coming in and going out, keeping you alive. Take that as a lesson for the mind. You’ve got to be consistent. Even though the path is … 
  11. The Buddha Defines Wisdom
     … As for the members that want entertainment, you can play with the breath in lots of ways, or you can entertain yourself with body contemplation. As I said, think of various ways in which you can drive home the point that the parts of the body are really not all that attractive. Use your ingenuity. This is why the control of the mind is … 
  12. The Blood You’ve Shed
     … If we don’t do that ourselves, we just have our own personal issues and we bring them right into the breath, right into the body right now. Then all the questions of “Why did this happen to me?” or “Why did he or she do that to me, how could I allow this to happen?”—those overwhelm the meditation. But if you see … 
  13. Actor & Experiencer
     … What are you going to do with the present moment? Well, you’ve got the breath; you’ve got the mind. You’ve got all the raw materials for awakening. It’s simply a matter of learning how to put them together in the right way. You don’t want to force things too much, but you also don’t want to be too … 
  14. Overconfidence & Underconfidence
     … Just little things, like noticing that when you would normally slip off the breath, you say, “No, I’m not going to slip off this time. I’ve seen this coming, I don’t want to have to fall in that old pattern. Let’s try something new.” Little things like that. Those are the things that make a big difference. So when you … 
  15. The Four Noble Truths
     … This is why, when you meditate, there are times when you just simply watch the breath, and other times when you want to play with it, experiment with it. You need both skills in order to deal with things as they come up. Otherwise, it’s like going to very a dangerous place and you’ve only learned one step, say, in the martial … 
  16. Strong & Heedful
     … This is why it’s especially important to focus your attention on the breath, because that gets you out of your head, where the comings and goings mostly happen, and down into the body, so that you have the sense of foundation, the sense of solidity you need to watch the comings and goings. But even then, as long as there are comings and … 
  17. Slogging Through Difficulties
     … Just focus on whatever the issue is right now, whatever problems you have relating to the breath, relating to the body, relating to the dry patches in your meditation. Remind yourself that patience and equanimity are perfections. Equanimity is also a factor for awakening. Patience, as the Buddha said, is the ultimate austerity, the fire of austerity that burns away the defilements of the … 
  18. The Allure of Sensuality
     … Yet here, by just being with the breath, you can maintain the sense of well-being for longer and longer times. You’ll find that the effect that this kind of pleasure has on the mind is very different. It’s soothing, it’s calming, it’s solidifying, as opposed to the kind of pleasures that we get from what Ajaan Fuang used to … 
  19. Resisting the Germs of Defilement
     … This is one of the reasons why we work with the breath, why we try to find ways of breathing that feel good so that the mind is soothed when it needs to be soothed, energized when it needs to be energized, calmed down when it needs to be calmed. That way, it feels basically healthy. Other things come in from outside and you … 
  20. The Flamethrowing Mind
     … And the message he got was that they worked with the breath energies in the body. So he decided to work with his own. So sometimes the fact simply that somebody can do something inspires other people to do it. They figure out that this is a possibility that hadn’t occurred to them before, but once it does occur to them, they see … 
  21. Large Perspective, Small Focus
     … physical fabrication, i.e., the breath; verbal fabrication, directed thought and evaluation; mental fabrication, which are perceptions and feelings—perceptions are the labels or images you apply to things, and feelings are feelings of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain. You realize, when you’re getting the mind into concentration, that you’re working directly with these forms of fabrication, getting hands-on … 
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