Search results for: "Feeling"

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  2. Watch the Mind at the Breath
    Take a couple of good long deep in-and-out breaths, both to refresh the body and to make it easy for the mind to stay with the breath, so that you notice where you feel the process of the breathing. Keep that up as long as deep breathing feels good. When it feels like it’s too much, then you can adjust it … 
  3. Distinctions That Make a Difference
     … Together with the breath there will either be pleasant feelings or unpleasant feelings. You’re trying to focus on the pleasant feelings and nurture them—give rise to them and keep them there. Then the perceptions—the images you hold in mind of the breath: When the breath comes into the body, where does it come in? How far does it go? You’ll … 
  4. Living Forward, Understanding Backward
     … They feel threatened; they feel attacked; they feel they’re in a weak position and so they strike out. So no matter how much you may dislike a particular person, there’s really no good reason to wish ill for that person. The wise attitude is to wish that that person find true happiness. If he or she could find true happiness within, the … 
  5. Peace on Earth
     … After you’ve played with the breath like this for a while, ask yourself what feels right, what feels balanced in the body, in terms of the breath. Are things too light? Too heavy? Too warm? Too cold? See if you can use the breath to bring them into balance. In doing this, you create a sense of ease in body and mind, a … 
  6. Different Minds, Different Bodies
     … The way you work with the breath will have to depend on where you are, what you need in order to, say, give yourself a sense of relaxation when you feel tense in different parts the body, or to energize yourself when you’re feeling tired, or to work with a pain that may be caused by poor blood flow in some part of … 
  7. It’s Good to Talk to Yourself
     … What are you saying to yourself about the breath right now? You can ask yourself if the breath feels good. Where do you feel the breath? What concept of breath are you using? There’s the breath of the air coming in and out through the nose. There’s also the breath of the energy movements in the body. Some of those movements are … 
  8. Bodywork for the Mind
     … See what kind of breathing gets you interested, what kind of breathing feels good for the body, feels good for the mind. If the breath doesn’t feel all that satisfying, ask yourself what kind of breathing would feel satisfying. If you don’t like the breath coming in and out of the nose, you can try the breath energy coming in and out … 
  9. Four Steps for the Heart & Mind
     … Because the mind and the feelings and the breath are all here together, one way of gladdening the mind, of course, would be to breathe in a way that feels really gratifying. What kind of hunger does your body have for the breath right now? Can you satisfy that? Would that be satisfactory to the mind? Sometimes if the mind is feeling weak or … 
  10. Sort Things Out
     … When you breathe in, where do you feel it? There’s a movement of energy in lots of different parts of the body. Wherever the movement seems clearest, most blatant, and easiest to follow, focus there. Then, as you breathe in, notice how long the in-breath feels comfortable and when it starts feeling uncomfortable. If it starts feeling uncomfortable, stop. Start breathing out … 
  11. How We Cling
     … They’re actually just activities—perceptions, thought constructs, or feelings—and they’re pretty ephemeral. The purpose of meditation is to get you more directly acquainted with these activities in a hand-on way. As you’re focusing here on the breath, the breath is form. You’re trying to create a feeling of pleasure. You do that by holding certain perceptions in mind … 
  12. Practicing from Gratitude
     … How are you breathing right now? What kind of breathing would feel really good? Try a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths to see if that feels nourishing or energizing. If it does, keep it up as long as it feels good. If it starts feeling like it’s too much, then you can calm down, make the breath shorter, more … 
  13. What to Tolerate, What Not
     … But you find the areas that feel okay. When you breathe in, they feel okay; when you breathe out, they feel okay. Focus on those parts. xx There are two ways you can do this. One is to find one small part in the body that feels good and stick with that. Make sure you can keep it feeling good all the way through … 
  14. Your Breath, Your Territory
     … They can hear you breathe, they can watch you breathe, but how your breath feels from within, that’s something nobody else can know. But you can use it. You can change the way you breathe, change the way you feel it, think of the breath going in different ways. And it responds. Sometimes it responds more quickly than other times, but the breath … 
  15. Start with Goodwill
     … Where do you feel the breathing in the body right now? You may have some preconceived notions about where the breath comes in, where the breath goes out, but where’s the actual feeling? And what is that actual feeling? It’s a feeling of movement or energy in the body. It doesn’t have any clear boundaries, because it’s not just the … 
  16. Streams of Anger
     … You have to learn how to think more precisely when you’re feeling irritated, feeling angry: You’ve got something you’ve got to take apart—the feeling of anger itself. The Buddha recommends that you think of anger and other unskillful emotions as a stream. There’s a current to the stream and it’s flowing out. The first thing you’ve got … 
  17. Permission to Play
     … The first is simply to pose the question in your mind with each breath: “What kind of breathing would feel really good right now?” See how the body responds. Or you can go about it more systematically. To expand your sense of what the breath is capable of, ask yourself: “What would longer breathing feel like?” And think of the breath going longer for … 
  18. Bigger than the World
     … One of the big mistakes we make as we work with the breath is that we have some cartoon ideas of what we should be feeling as the breath comes in; what we should be feeling as the breath goes out. We then create those feelings and, as a result, add a lot of unnecessary tension to the breathing process. So think of the … 
  19. Stay Tuned
     … Or you can tune in to the feeling of the breath. Like a vapor of alcohol, it can’t be contained. It has no clear or boundaries. It flows through the body, around the body. So allow your mind to tune in to the lightness of the breath in the same way that you tune a radio to a specific station. This is called … 
  20. Happy to Be Here
    Take a couple of good long deep in-and-out breaths and notice where you feel the breathing. Notice if it’s comfortable. If it feels constricted or if you’re not getting enough energy, you can think of longer breathing. Think of the whole torso being involved in the breath coming in, the breath going out. And see what kind of breathing feels … 
  21. An Island of Concentration
     … You try to stay with the breath as it comes in, goes out, and discern when it’s long, when it’s short, and try to figure out if long breathing feels better or short breathing feels better. That’s because the Buddha also tells you to breathe in ways that give rise to a sense of refreshment, a sense of pleasure, and those … 
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