Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Tapping into the Breath
    Tapping into the Breath July 17, 2017 Time and again, I say—when you’re focusing on the breath—to remember that the breath is not so much the air coming in and out of the lungs, as it is a flow of energy in the body. One of those flows is the flow that allows the air to come in and out. The … 
  3. Just-Right Concentration
     … Once the breath has the right rhythm, you can think about the breath energies in the rest of the body. How do they connect? There’s breath there already. If there weren’t breath, you’d be paralyzed. It’s already running through the nerves, running through the blood vessels. How do you sense where it’s blocked, where it’s not flowing as … 
  4. Mental Stirrings
     … The quicker you get at eliminating the thought—whether it’s simply just dropping the thought and coming back to the breath or when the breath gets really refined and spreads throughout the whole body—you can actually zap the thought with the breath in its more incipient stages. As you do this, you begin to see that the issue is not so much … 
  5. Blessings
     … We’re focusing on the breath, we’re trying to develop right mindfulness, right effort and right concentration—all of that based on right view. These are all qualities of the path, factors of the path that we want to develop. This is why we use the breath as a gathering place for the mind. Be aware of where the breath comes in and … 
  6. Mindfulness, Discernment, & Peace of Mind
     … This is one of the reasons why we start with the breath, because you can breathe in a way that feels really soothing. When you think of the breath, especially as the energy going through the different parts of the body, you can ask yourself, “Where in the body do I need a little soothing right now to calm the nerves?” Think of the … 
  7. Four Bases of Success
     … You also want to learn how to be familiar with how the breath energy feels as you walk around, as you stand, as you lie down. When you talk with other people, can you stay in touch with how the breath energy in the body feels? Because when we talk about “breath,” it’s not just the air coming in and out of the … 
  8. Don’t Objectify
    We focus on watching the breath so that ultimately the mind can watch itself, because the breath is probably the closest thing that you could focus on outside of the mind. In the beginning, it’s a lot easier to stay with the breath than it is just to stay with awareness, because awareness is so large and vague and has such ill-defined … 
  9. Name & Form
    Name & Form January 24, 2020 When you close your eyes and focus on the breath as you feel it, you’re moving from the level of sensuality to the level of form. It’s a step up. The pleasures that can come from the level of form are much more refined and much less likely to lead to unskillful behavior than the pleasures of … 
  10. Inner Refuge Through Inner Strength
     … You focus on the breath, try to stay with the breath as much as you can. If you need a meditation word to help, use buddho, which means “awake”; or you can just do in and out—anything that helps you stay with the breath. Then, when you can stay with the breath, you can drop the meditation word. And the more continually you … 
  11. Coming into the Present
     … For instance, with the breath: You focus on the breath coming in and going out. As you do that, there’s always the question of which of your sensations in the body right now are related to the breath. A lot of it depends on your perception, the way you conceive of the breath. If you think of the body as a big bellows … 
  12. A Magic Set of Tools
     … Keep reminding yourself to come back — stay with the breath, stay with the breath, stay with the breath — consistently. And then evaluation, which grows out of alertness, looks at the breath: Is this a comfortable place to stay? What do you need to adjust? Do you need to move the focus of your attention? Do you need to adjust the breath? Do you need … 
  13. The Forerunner of All Things
     … We focus on the breath because it’s close to the mind, and we give it the task of staying with the breath, getting to know the breath, being sensitive to the breath. As we do this, other things will come up in the mind that will get in the way. There’s a standard list of hindrances, and those are just five large … 
  14. Mental Seclusion
     … What kind of image do you have of the breath when you breathe in? Does it help or does it not? And if the mind is staying with the breath, try to be as sensitive as possible to the breathing. This moves into the third quality, ardency. You want to do this well. So while you’re with the breath, try to be super … 
  15. Doing, Maintaining, Using
     … Think, “a little bit longer,” think, “a little bit shorter.” See how the breathing responds, and how it feels as it responds. You can think, “deeper,” think of your whole body all the way down to your toes breathing in, breathing out. Think of the breath all around the body. Think of the body as being like a big sponge and the breath is … 
  16. Simple & Basic
     … You’re going to stay with the breath. The mind wanders off: Bring it back. Wanders off again, bring it back again. Make the breath comfortable. See if making the breath comfortable makes it easier to stay. This is all pretty basic stuff, but there’s a lot there. When the mind wanders off and you’re bringing it back, all the factors of … 
  17. Staying True
    Focus the mind on the breath. Notice where you feel the breath in the body. Any spot where the sensation is very clear that now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out: Focus on that spot. It doesn’t have to be at the nose. It might be in the chest. You can feel the rising of the chest as … 
  18. Looking after Yourself with Ease
     … And while you’re doing this, you’re talking to yourself about the breath. That’s what the verbal fabrication is: technically, directed thought and evaluation. Keep directing your thoughts to the breath. If they go wandering someplace else, turn the arrow around and bring it right back to the breath. And then you can talk to yourself about the breath. Evaluate it. “How … 
  19. Nurturing Your Inner Adult
     … Sometimes, when you’re consciously breathing, you tend to tense up certain parts of the body to get the breath in, to push the breath out, and those patterns of tension get unpleasant after a while. They constrict the flow of the breath energy. So, think of everything being wide open. The energy can flow freely, and you just sit in the middle of … 
  20. The Practice of Right View
     … The purpose of the talk is to act like a fence, to catch you when you wander away from the breath, to keep pointing you back to the breath. Because it’s right at this spot—where the mind and the body meet at the breath here in the present moment—that your practice takes place. That’s where you’re going to see … 
  21. The Power of Intention
     … The breath can’t get through it, and the breath gets confined to a narrow space. But remind yourself that the breath was there first. The flow of the blood was there first. The pain came later. Then you find it easier for your conscious awareness to spread there and for the flow of energy to spread there. It’s your space. It’s … 
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