Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Choosing & Watching Your Choices
    Focus your attention on the breath. Take a couple of good, long in-and-out breaths and notice where you feel the sensation of breathing most clearly. When we talk of the breath, it’s not necessarily the air, although that may be the prime thing you notice first. It’s more the energy in the body, the process of breathing itself. What is … 
  3. Analysis of Qualities
     … As you try to focus on the breath, there will be other thoughts coming into the mind. Now, some of them are actually useful, such as the thoughts that say, “Is the breath comfortable? Could it be made more comfortable?” You’re not just lulling yourself to sleep. You’re trying to figure things out. But then, of course, there are the thoughts that … 
  4. Respect
     … So as we come to the practice of meditation, try to bring an attitude of respect, realizing that there’s a lot to be learned here, even in this simple activity of watching the breath—because you learn both about the breath, and about yourself. On the one hand, you learn to see what the breath can do for you, in terms of calming … 
  5. Goodness Comes from Heedfulness
     … Again, this applies both to the breath and to situations outside. Applied to the breath, it means looking at the way you breathe, understanding the breath in a way that enables the breath to be nourishing throughout the whole body, so that you can give rise to feelings of ease, rapture, serenity throughout the whole body. Think of the breath as a whole-body … 
  6. The Quest for Inner Happiness
     … You try to keep the breath in mind. And you keep in mind the fact that your mind will probably slip away, and you want to be alert to that. As soon as you notice it happening, you bring the mind back to the breath. The more sensitive you are to what’s going on, and the quicker you can come back to the … 
  7. Things as They Function
     … He has you focus on the breath. Now, he says that as you focus on the breath, your mind will be there. It can’t help but be there. Eventually the focal point will move from the breath to the mind as it’s with the breath, but for the time being, focus a lot of attention on the breath, because here you’re … 
  8. A Meditation Karma Checklist
     … Generally, it’s the breath. As Ajaan Lee said, make the breath your home base. So make sure that you really are with the breath. Now, you may discover that the mind has other problems. Sometimes it’s having problems with lust, so switch over to the 32 parts of the body. If you’re having problems with ill will for somebody, okay, try … 
  9. Past & Future in the Present
    Close your eyes and make up your mind that you’re going to stay with the breath for the rest of the hour. Watch the breath as it’s coming in, and watch it as it’s going out. And remember to stay here. It’s very easy to forget. You’re basically doing three things. You make the intention to stay, which is … 
  10. The Mind Comes First
     … As you’re focused on the breath, talking to yourself about the breath, your knowledge about these things will then get lodged in the breath. That will become your reminder. When unskillful thoughts come up, you can remind yourself, “Okay, one of the ways of undercutting them is to turn around, look at the breath again.” Drop whatever that frame of reference was, and … 
  11. Wisdom & Compassion
     … And allow the breath to be comfortable, because the breath is the main function of the body that has an influence over the other ones. It’s basically the point where the mind and the body meet. Breathe in a way that’s good for the body, good for the mind. Think of the breath surrounding you on all sides. It’s not just … 
  12. Single-minded
     … So in this case, with the thoughts directed to the breath, you keep reminding yourself to stay with the breath. The evaluation is to make sure that the breath is a good place to stay. It’s just right for the body, just right for the mind. If it’s not comfortable, you figure out what could be done to make it more comfortable … 
  13. Three Levels of Concentration
     … Normally, as you get more settled down, and the breath gets softer, more refined, it gets harder and harder to keep track of. So you need to expand your frame of reference to include the whole body. That you can keep track of, even if the in-and-out movements of the breath grow still. There are lots of ways of working with the … 
  14. Cooking the Present Moment
     … The way you breathe, the way you think about the breath, comment on the breath, ask questions about the breath, your basic perceptions of the breath: These are all present karma. It’s through your present karma that you can make your food edible. Now, we’re used to our old ways of fixing the food. And, as with physical food, sometimes it takes … 
  15. A Good Foundation
     … I realized that a lot of the problem had to do with where, in my mental picture of the breathing, the breath was coming in. That tended to activate certain muscles and made them do the work. So I learned to change the spot where I thought the breath was coming in, so as to share the load. The muscles I had been working … 
  16. Heedful of Death
     … As you keep the breath in mind, you’re developing mindfulness. As you focus on what’s actually happening with the breath, and on whether the mind is staying with the breath, that’s the quality of alertness. Ardency, however, is what actually develops these things. In other words, as soon as you’ve noticed that you’ve slipped off the breath, if you … 
  17. Concentration & Insight
     … The carrot is a nice comfortable feeling you can develop with the breath. If you work with it, if you explore it, you find that the breath can be really, really comfortable. Sometimes it gets so good that you get absorbed in the breathing and you can’t imagine why you would need anything else to make yourself happy—it just feels so good … 
  18. The World of the Body
     … Notice where you feel the breath, the sensations that let you know that now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out. Give all your attention to those sensations. Notice whether they’re comfortable or not. If they’re not, you can change them. You can change the rate of the breath. You can breathe shorter or longer, faster or slower … 
  19. Where Perceptions Can Take You
     … Ajaan Lee is very helpful when he talks about perceiving the breath-energy channels flowing through the body and the different centers of the breath, allowing the breath to flow from those centers out through the entire body via the breath channels. Some people find that if they can focus on the center right around the breastbone, breath seems to fill the body. It … 
  20. For Your Benefit Here & Now
     … You come to the breath because that’s your anchor in the present moment, and you try to stay here. To stay here solidly, figure out how to keep the mind interested in the breath. This is one of the reasons why Ajaan Lee teaches that you work with the breath energies. Notice how you feel the breath in the chest, how you feel … 
  21. The Time & Place to Let Go
    Close your eyes and focus on the breath. Watch it as it comes in; watch it as it goes out. Notice how it feels. Notice where you feel it most predominantly. It might be at the nose, the rising and falling of the chest, the rise and fall of the abdomen, or anywhere in the body where you can clearly sense: Now the breath … 
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