Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Cooking Skills
     … Hold that image in mind and see what it does to the way you breathe. **And where are **you **in relationship to the breath? Sometimes there’s the tendency to feel that we’re outside of the body a little bit, looking in. But you have to remember: The breath is all around you. All too often we say, “Watch the breath,” when it … 
  3. Saying No to Distraction
     … So you work with the breath; you work with your perceptions of the breath, keeping track of body—in other words, the breath itself and its relationship to the body—the feelings that arise, and the mental state that’s watching over this. You want to bring those three things together. And get interested in this. This is a big problem that a lot … 
  4. In Search of What is Skillful
     … Then you look at the breath: This is where Ajaan Lee gives lots of recommendations for evaluating the length of the breath, the quality of the breath. You’re evaluating—once you get a sense of pleasure out of the breath—how you can make the most of it: spreading it through the body. You also evaluate how you can maintain that full body … 
  5. The Psychology of Harmlessness
     … Then, when everything feels nicely energized by the breath, the breath energy in the body feels full, you can allow the breath to calm down. Those are the basic steps in terms of the breath. One of the interesting features of those steps is that the Buddha doesn’t say simply, “Let the breath calm down.” He says, “Calm bodily fabrication.” Bodily fabrication*, kaya … 
  6. Attached to Concentration
     … For instance, with the breath: In his Method Two, Ajaan Lee gives a fairly detailed guidelines on where you can focus on the breath and the different ways the breath can flow in the body, but if you look in his Dhamma talks, you’ll see that he played with the breath in lots of other ways as well. He was always coming up … 
  7. Breathing Skillfully
     … This is why our skill starts with focusing on the breath and then looking at how we’re talking to ourselves about the breath. Usually, in the very beginning, your mind will be talking about other things. It drops the breath and goes running after whatever comes past. You’ve got to learn how to drop those other things and come back to the … 
  8. A Path of Skills
     … Notice where you feel the breath in the body. Wherever there are sensations that enable you to know, “Now the breath is coming in, now the breath is going out,” focus on those sensations. Then notice if they’re comfortable. If they are, keep it up. If they’re not, you can change. You can make the breath shorter, more shallow, heavier, lighter, faster … 
  9. Sober Up
     … So you can think of the mind either going up or down, whichever seems to describe how it feels to you as the mind settles in with the breath and you drop all your other concerns. For the time being, you don’t want to be interested in anything else—just interested in the breath. Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and … 
  10. Calming Mental Fabrication
    When the Buddha teaches concentration practice—breath meditation practice—he gives you a physical fabrication to focus on, i.e., the breath coming in, going out, and then he gives you a verbal fabrication, the instructions, “Keep track of the breath; remain focused on the breath—ardent, alert, mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” So you keep reminding yourself … 
  11. Right Resolve
     … So focus on the breath in a way that feels comfortable. Focusing on the breath is called directed thought. Learning how to make it comfortable is called evaluation. These are the two factors that help build concentration. The third factor is singleness: that you really focus on the breath and try to stay with the breath and nothing else. These are the three things … 
  12. Tenacity
     … There’s a tendency when you’re working with the breath for the mind to have its pauses and its phrases, you might call them—the way music is phrased. The breath comes in, the breath goes out: That’s one breath. Then it comes in, goes out: That’s the second breath. But you treat them like separate phrases. You move from one … 
  13. Invest in the Breath
     … If you want, you can use a meditation word along with the breath, Buddho: Bud, in; dho, out. It means awake. It’s the quality of mind we’re trying to develop here. Notice how the breath feels and where you feel the breath, because the breath isn’t just the air coming in and out through the nose. It’s also the movement … 
  14. 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 … 
  15. The Need for Evaluation
    When you focus on the breath, when you try to bring the mind to a state of concentration, you’re trying to do two things at once. One is to give the mind a place where it can rest, gather its strength, heal its wounds, and in general develop a sense of ease and well-being. The second purpose is to be able to … 
  16. Only Natural
     … So now, as you meditate, you’re going to talk to yourself about the breath, and you’re going to talk to yourself about getting the mind to stay with the breath, and wanting to stay with the breath—a new topic of conversation, a new way of talking. So talk to yourself about the breath. How is the breath right now? Is it … 
  17. Tending the Flame
     … Once you’ve finally got the mind to settle down, you’ve talked to yourself about the breath, and about the mind’s relationship to the breath, and figured out how to get them snugly together: From that point on, you try to maintain it with as much ease as possible, but also as much strength as you can manage, so that you can … 
  18. Potentials for Rapture
     … So just drop the perception of the breath and focus on something else. Then sneak back into the breath through the back door. In other words, look at how the breathing feels, look at how your sense of the body feels when you’re thinking about something inspiring. In addition to the recollections, you might be thinking thoughts of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, or … 
  19. Confident, Steadfast, Resolute
     … If you don’t stay here, how are you going to learn about the potentials of the breath? We read about the ajaans, about Ajaan Lee and all the psychic powers he developed through staying with the breath. We hear about the Buddha, how he gained awakening by focusing on his breath. If you don’t really look into the breath, devote yourself to … 
  20. Universal Truths
     … Because as you work with the breath, you begin to gain a sense of the power that the mind has on the sensation of the breath. You can play with the breath: Make it long, make it short, deep, shallow, heavy, light, fast or slow. You can check the impact on the body and the impact on the mind of those different ways of … 
  21. The Trick to Staying in Place
     … Focus in on the breath. Know when the breath is coming in, know when it’s going out. This involves two things: mindfulness, which is keeping this in mind, remembering to stay with the breath; and then alertness, watching the breath as it comes in, goes out, to see what it’s like. That’s the mind in place. The hard part of the … 
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