Search results for: "The Breath"

  1. Page 141
  2. Own Your Actions
     … The physical pain may have to stay there, although you can check if that’s the case by working with the breath energy first to see if that can help. If you have this good solid foundation in your concentration inside, this center inside, then you can make forays out from that center and probe into the pain. Ask questions about it. And as … 
  3. An Anthropologist from Mars
     … When you’re meditating, all thoughts are suspect until they show they can help you with staying with the breath or understanding what’s going on in the mind. Only then do you admit them into the meditation. But everything else gets called into question. And this is a useful attitude to maintain even when you’re not meditating. The press of society makes … 
  4. Three Virtues for the Mind
     … For instance, as you focus on the breath, try to make it really comfortable, until you can show to yourself that happiness doesn’t have to depend on a lot of things outside. There’s a strong current of thought in our society—even with the recession and all the exposure of what greed has done for us over the past who knows how … 
  5. Guardian Meditations, Right & Wrong
     … As long as you’re with your breath and the breath is at ease and comfortable and you don’t go running off after other things that may come up, you’re in safe territory. The problem is that, as with any animal, you can’t stay only in safe territory all the time. There are times when you have to go out foraging … 
  6. Goodwill Without Limits
     … by holding yourself to an unlimited standard like this, you help to expose areas of the heart and of the mind that tend to get missed when you simply focus on the breath or whatever your topic of mindfulness might be. After all, this, too, is a kind of mindfulness. It doesn’t come under the four establishings of mindfulness but it’s an … 
  7. Directing the Flow
     … training yourself to calm the breathing, training yourself to breathe in a way where you’re sensitive to pleasure, sensitive to rapture. That takes training because sometimes the incipient stages of pleasure and rapture are hard to notice. They’re subtle, like little tiny sprouts: If you don’t pay any attention to them, if you don’t appreciate them, you just step on … 
  8. Goodness & Goodwill
     … I was talking the other day to someone who was working on opening up breath channels in the body, and he was concerned that once you start opening up the breath channels, if there’s any negative energy outside, it might start coming in. There are cases like that, but they happen because you’re not fully inhabiting the body. You can fully inhabit … 
  9. Cook Your Mind
     … trying to find some comfort with the breath, trying to find some ease with getting the mind to settle down and letting it rest. The author of that article said in another article one time that the natural position of your hand is to be relaxed, and in the same way, the purpose of the practice is to get the mind to stay relaxed … 
  10. Think Calmly about Death
     … When it finally does settle down with the breath and there’s a sense of really belonging here in the body, that’s a different order of pleasure, and it’s much better than sensual pleasure. It puts you on a wavelength where—if you happened to die at this moment and didn’t lose this sense of being centered right here—you’d … 
  11. Dreams & Voices
     … There’s one voice that says, “Okay, focus on the breath.” Another series of voices say, “No, I’d rather do this. I’d rather do that.” You have to ask them, “Where is that going to lead?” As the Buddha said, the sign of your wisdom is learning how to look not at what you’d like to do, but for the long … 
  12. Over the Pass
     … You’ve got the breath element here filling the body. Just be with just breath element, without thinking about whose breath element it is. You can breathe in ways that give rise to a sense of pleasure. Again, you don’t have to think about whose pleasure it is. It’s good enough just that it’s pleasure. Then you develop mind states that … 
  13. The Resolve to Let Go
     … If you’re going to stay with the breath, you have to let go of anything else that comes into the range of your awareness, no matter how amazingly wonderful or desirable or stylish or glamorous or whatever it may seem. If you’ve had practice in letting go, giving things away, it’s a lot easier to take the leap, to give this … 
  14. Against Your Type
     … Sometimes as you’re meditating and things get dry, it might be wise to drop the breath for a little while and think of a topic that gives you a little more joy, a little more inspiration in the practice. Sometimes thinking thoughts of goodwill can help provide that sense of inspiration. Or you can recollect the Buddha and what a wonderful teacher he … 
  15. Battling the Hindrances
     … If the breath is too soothing, try to breathe in a way that’s more energizing. Or you might use a contemplation that helps wake you up. You can start thinking about the bones in the body. Where are your finger bones right now? Where are your hand bones? Wrist bones? Work your way up the arms to the shoulders. Then start with the … 
  16. Your Own Karma
     … This applies to cases when you’re sensitive enough to the breath energy in the body that you can tell: When a thought arises, there’s a certain part of the body that will tense up. The thought is actually related to that tension in that particular part of the body. Whether it’s in the heart or the arm or in the leg … 
  17. The Same for Everyone
     … the spot where the mind is still, the breath is still, your awareness fills the body. Getting there may have required all kinds of ups and downs, not just east, west, north, and south. Some people had problems with visions; some people felt stymied because they didn’t have any visions; other people had problems with the different elements in their body getting out … 
  18. Step Outside the World
     … the body as a whole, from the top of the head down to the tips of the toes, with the breath still, and the mind in equanimity. This is the frame of reference where you can see these bubbles of little worlds coming up in the mind and you don’t necessarily have to get sucked into them. It’s like driving past a … 
  19. Caught in a Thorn Bush
     … What are the causes to make it happen? You focus on the breath. If the mind wanders off, you bring it right back. If it wanders off again, you bring it back again. This is where the patience comes in; in that no matter how many times it wanders off, you don’t get upset—you simply, very matter-of-factly bring it back … 
  20. Virtue & Right View
     … Then ask yourself, “What kind of breathing would feel good?” The long breathing is to air out the body, to make you sensitive to how the breathing feels, and to give you an anchor. Then, as you settle down a little bit more, you get more sensitive to what the body needs. Does it need to be energized right now? Okay, try long in … 
  21. The Allure of the Hindrances
     … If you’re focusing on the breath in one way that’s making you sleepy, well, change the way you breathe. Or change the topic of meditation. Try something that engages the mind more. Think of all the 32 parts of the body. Visualize them. Ask yourself where they are in your body right now. Breathe deeply into that part of the body. Then … 
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