Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Abusing Pleasure & Pain
     … This is where you become more sensitive to the breath energies in the body: the flow of energy down the back, or sometimes up the back; down the legs, or sometimes up the legs. These things really vary from person to person. You find that conceiving of the breath energy in different ways helps to modulate the breathing so that it feels good: just … 
  3. Appropriate Attention
     … The right intention is the intention is to stay there with the breath. And then the third factor is the right quality: the quality of the breathing that feels good, the quality of the mind that’s willing to be friendly with the breath, explore the breath, learn about the breath, it’s willing to test things and then observe the results. When my … 
  4. Throughout the Day
     … Because this is an extra duty that requires more energy, you need to get a sense of well-being with the breath, taking the breath as your basis. In the past, I’ve used the image of going through the day juggling: Instead of thinking of the meditation as one more ball you have to juggle and keep in the air, think of the … 
  5. Don’t Believe Everything You Think
    Start out with the intention to stay with the breath. Make up your mind that no matter what else comes into your mind—whatever thoughts, intentions, feelings—you’re not going to go with them. You’re going to stay with the breath. Now, this doesn’t mean the other thoughts and intentions won’t come. They don’t get scared away simply by … 
  6. Full, Focused Attention
    Try to let go of all other thoughts and focus on thinking about the breath. Pose a few questions in the mind: Where do you feel the breath? Where do you feel the process of breathing? Pay attention right there. Try to develop a quality of intentness in what you’re doing, giving it your full attention. Be very careful to keep this in … 
  7. Fabricating Around Pain
    Take a couple of long, good deep in and out breaths, and notice where you feel the breathing process in the body. When we talk about “breath,” it’s not just the air coming in and out of the lungs. It’s the movement of energy that goes along with that, that actually brings the air in and allows it out. That can be … 
  8. A Home & a Mobile Home
    One of the standard terms for concentration is *vihara-dhamma, *which can be translated as “a home for the mind.” As you focus on the breath, you want to get the mind so that it feels at home here, in a home that’s solidly built and a good place to stay. Otherwise, the mind goes roaming out looking for scraps outside to give … 
  9. The Hall of Mirrors
     … Simply allow it to stay with the breath and try to use as gentle a touch as possible. If you’re going to change the breath, just think. You don’t have to exert pressure on it. The parts of the body you can exert pressure on are the liquid parts. The breath just slips through. It’s like a breeze going through a … 
  10. Discernment on the Path
     … With the breath, you don’t leave the breath until the breath leaves you. In other words, you stay with the breath energy in the body until everything gets really, really quiet, and the breath doesn’t even move. That’s when you start working with the formless meditations. But until that point, you want to stay with the breath. And even when you … 
  11. The Fortress
     … Then you get the mind in position, focused on the breath. Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the breathing in the body. Remember the “breath” here is not so much the air coming in and out through the nose, but it’s the breath energy in the body that exists on many different levels. The … 
  12. No One Size Fits All
     … focusing on the impact of the breath on the body, learning how to allow that impact to calm down; focusing on the feelings that the breath creates—feelings of pleasure, feelings of rapture, refreshment—and allowing those to calm down; noticing how you perceive the breath energy in the body, working with different perceptions that allow the breath to calm-down; using the breath … 
  13. A Special Time
     … You can even be thinking about how you conceive the breath. There are lots of different ways of picturing the breath to yourself. One of the most effective for getting the mind into the present moment in your body right here, right now, is to think of the breath not just as the air coming in and out of the lungs, but as the … 
  14. Enlarged Awareness
     … For one thing, there’s a common problem that as the breath gets more comfortable, more refined, if your range of awareness is small, you slip out someplace else, either you slip into sleep or you slip off into a vision, or into something else away from the breath. That’s because the breath get too subtle to notice, and the mind will latch … 
  15. Dethinking Thinking
     … So stay close to the sensation of the breath. You’ll realize, of course, that perceptions play a role in concentration, too—in keeping you with the breath in and of itself. How you perceive the breath will have a huge impact on how you experience it. In other words, the way you label it, the pictures you have in your mind about the … 
  16. Putting Aside the World
     … You’ve got this whole hour now to benefit from just doing this one thing—holding on to this activity of being with the breath, evaluating the breath, experimenting with the breath, developing interest in the breath—and putting aside any other mental events or activities that would pull you away. They’re not your responsibility right now. Your responsibility is your mind, your … 
  17. Distinctions That Make a Difference
     … If, when the breath gets comfortable, you focus on the sense of comfort and forget the breath, you begin to zone out. So, just to master concentration, you need to see these things distinctly and be very clear about where you are. As you get better and better at focusing on the breath, you begin to realize: Your perception of the breath is one … 
  18. Get Attached to Jhana
     … That’s the kind of focus you want, right here in the midst of the body as you allow yourself to be surrounded by the breath, bathed by the breath, surrounded by the sensation of breathing. Think of the breath as a whole-body process and explore aspects of the breath. When Ajaan Lee talks about the different kinds of breathing, the fascinating part … 
  19. Boxed Stories
     … He says that when you’re working with the breath properly, you get all four frames of reference: body, feelings, mind, mental qualities. They’re all connected to the breath because after all, they’re all right here. When you’re with the breath, the fact that you’re attentive to the breath and alert to the breath creates a feeling of pleasure. When … 
  20. Strengthening Discernment
     … There’s a whole tribe of people out there who, every time they say they focus on the breath, point to their nose. But that’s not the only place where you feel the breath. In fact, if that’s your perception of what the breath is, it’s important to realize that you can create a lot of tightness, a sense of constriction … 
  21. Around in Circles
     … What kind of experimenting gets results? If you push the breath too hard or too much, it gets very unnatural. But if you don’t do anything with the breath at all, you don’t really learn much. You don’t get a sense of the real potential of what the breath can do for you. The breath can be an object that you … 
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