Search results for: "The Breath"

  1. Page 140
  2. More than Mindfulness
     … There’s a little stirring, right on the border between the breath and your awareness. It could turn into just anything. It could turn into just a physical stirring or it could turn into a thought. As soon as you sense it, zap it, disperse it. Don’t just watch it come and go. Make it go. That’s where the ardency comes in … 
  3. Concentration Nurtured by Virtue
     … He recommends the earth in the sutta, but you can use the breath as an alternative. You’re just here with breath. You can think of breath permeating throughout the body—the whole body is breathing, down to every little cell, down to every little nerve and blood vessel in the body. And that’s a much less disturbed state of mind than even … 
  4. Looking Inward
     … This is why we work on creating this sense of well-being, staying with the breath—learning how to keep the mind in a basic good mood. Not because the good mood is an end in and of itself: You use it as a tool. So often we treat pleasure and pain as ends in themselves, especially the pleasure as an end in and … 
  5. Comfortable as an Outsider
     … You can be aware of the whole body with a sense of well-being throughout the whole body, calming the effect of the breath on the mind, calming your perceptions. These are things you can do. So when you find yourself getting discouraged or getting pulled into the questions of the world, remind yourself: What are the questions the Buddha would have you ask … 
  6. Mindfulness Island
     … We focus on the breath as our main topic for meditation, but you don’t use that as your only topic. It’s your home base. As you realize that you’re facing a world where the values are very much opposed to the Dhamma, you have to reinforce your determination that you’re going to stick with the Dhamma throughout the day. That … 
  7. Streams of Anger
     … are the perceptions you hold in mind? A lot of these things go into what’s called the *allure *of the anger: why you feel justified, why you like the anger. The breathing itself may be unpleasant, and that’s what gives you the sense that “I’ve got to get this out of my system.” Sometimes you can stir things up pretty badly … 
  8. Make the Most of This Breath
     … So when you find a good road, which is the breath, you want it to stay on that road. It gives you a standard of measurement. Stay right here. Stay right here. Right now. Don’t wait for a little time further on in the hour. Right now you want to be right here. After all, how much time do we have? We don … 
  9. Discernment & Determination
     … Like when you’re meditating on the breath right now: If you think you’re going to be here for the whole hour or for the whole night, that’s too much to take. You say, “I’ve got this one breath. Okay, now this breath, and now this breath.” Take it one breath at a time. Be responsible for right now. You don … 
  10. Compunction
     … Whatever it’s saying that might pull you away from the breath, learn how to put that aside. Whatever complaints it has, this is where you can use the term, “I don’t care. I don’t care about the complaints. I’m just going to keep doing my work.” And if the results seem to be coming slowly, you say, “I don’t … 
  11. Remembering Ajaan Suwat
     … It could be the breath; it could be goodwill; it could be the unattractiveness of the body. What happens when you really do this?—when you really do get the mind centered to the point where there’s a sense of ease, pleasure, rapture, fullness, refreshment, and then you work that pleasure and refreshment through the body. That’s what the directed thought and … 
  12. The River of Karma
     … What lessons have you learned from dealing with the breath in the past? Are they relevant now, or are things different? You try the approaches you’ve learned from the past. When they work, you stick with them; when they don’t work, you’ve got to learn how to adjust. You’ve got to learn how to observe again. This means there’s … 
  13. A Meritorious Heart
     … As you go beyond the practice of goodwill into focusing on the breath, developing mindfulness, developing concentration, it’s all best done with this attitude of a meritorious heart, a heart that wishes happiness for all, wishes true happiness for all. This is why we meditate. This is why we practice to begin with. We want a happiness that doesn’t harm anybody. We … 
  14. Unskillful Voices
     … Having your spot inside the body where you feel at ease, where the breath feels gratifying, feels good coming in, feels good going out, is an important ally in the practice. After all, when you sit down and look at your mind, you’ll often see things you don’t like. Sometimes they’re memories of the past, things you did in the past … 
  15. Action & the End of Action
     … One of reasons we start with the breath as a topic for meditation is because it’s where all physical activity begins. If you pay attention to your breath, you’re right at the source of where an impulse comes out of the mind and goes into the body. You’re there to see it, to reflect on it, to pass judgment on it … 
  16. Dichotomies
     … You can use form, you can use the breath elements in the body, but it’s the name factors that are using it to make a state of concentration, to give a sense of well-being. So the form factors can play a role as part of the path, but, as I said, the name factors will decide what kind of path that’s … 
  17. Wandering Aimlessly
     … You make up your mind to stay focused on the breath, and two breaths later it’s someplace else. That, the Buddha said, contains a lot of the problem right there—not in the attempt to concentrate the mind, but in the fact of wandering. That’s all that samsara is. The mind wanders pretty aimlessly. It has its aims, but if you were … 
  18. The Duty to Understand
     … the directed thoughts that focus your attention on the breath, and the evaluation that looks at it to see where it might be improved, or where it’s already pleasant, and what can be done with that sense of pleasure. We can spread it around. And we try to maintain our awareness of these things. So we’re still holding on, but we’re … 
  19. The Practice is Wherever There’s Mindfulness
     … Like right now as you’re meditating, you’re keeping the breath in mind. You’re keeping your meditation word in mind—if you’re using a meditation word—remembering not to wander off; remembering also, if you wander off, to come back. You can also remember what ways have worked in the past to get the mind to settle down, so that if … 
  20. Love for the Dhamma
     … The real problems lie in the mind, which is why we sit here focusing the mind on the breath as a way of bringing the mind into the present moment, where we can watch it. We turn our gaze inward, instead of outward. What do you see when you look outward? You see aging, illness, and death. You see other people’s issues: their … 
  21. Motivation
     … And you content yourself with the fact “I’ve got to do this step well.” This doesn’t mean that you lower your sights, it simply means that you raise your standards for what you’re doing right now in the sense of, “Whatever the step is, I want to do it well.” Don’t overlook the little steps like staying with the breath … 
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