Search results for: "The Breath"

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  2. Ironies
    Meditating on the breath starts with two activities: One is thinking about the breath, and the other is actually watching the breath as it comes in and goes out. When you think about the breath, you don’t just think once. You keep on thinking about it. In other words, you have to be mindful. “Mindful” means keeping something in mind. In this case … 
  3. Breath Meditation When It’s Hard to Breathe
     … He had learned already that you can focus on the breath up in the head. He began to realize there was more. There’s the breath that goes down the spine, the breath that goes down the legs, down the arms. So he took advantage of that. Working with the breath energies in the body, he was able to pull himself together and at … 
  4. Self-Correct
     … When you’re with the breath, you want to be as sensitive as possible to how the breath feels. Then think of any sense of ease or well-being that comes with the breath as spreading around. You don’t want to clamp down on your sense of the body, your sense of the breath. You want there to be a sense of freedom … 
  5. Tranquility & Insight
     … You’ve got the breath: That’s form. You’ve got the feeling of pleasure around the breath: That’s feeling. You’ve got the perception of the breath that holds you with it; the thought-fabrications that help adjust the breath and make it just right; and the consciousness that’s aware of all these things. So you’ve got all five aggregates … 
  6. Countercultural Conditioning
     … Talk to yourself about the breath. Talk to yourself about the breath in a way that helps the mind to settle down, so that the mind and the breath fit together nicely, where the breath is calm enough so that it has a calming effect on the mind, but not so subtle that you lose focus. The subtlety of the breath will develop as … 
  7. The Source of Goodness
     … If you learn to be at ease with the breath, sensitive to the breath, you know what’s going on in the mind, because the breath does mirror the events in the mind. That puts you a lot more in touch with what’s going on inside. Thoughts and emotions will show up in the breath. You can use the skills we’ve been … 
  8. Start the Year Right Here
     … being mindful of the breath, being alert to the breath, being persistent and sensitive in how you approach the breath, how you play with the breath, adjust the breath, experiment, so that you really get to know how the mind and the breath relate. To develop this kind of consistent awareness requires discipline. The discipline is, as soon as the mind slips off, you … 
  9. The Web of Pain
     … So you start with the breath. How you focus your attention on the breath and how you evaluate the breath: That’s called verbal fabrication. You can think of the breath, if you want, simply as the air coming in and out of the lungs, but that’s very restrictive. You can also think of it as the energy flow in the body, and … 
  10. Forging a Path
     … Try to be right here with the body, right here with the breath. Take some good long in-and-out breaths. Think of the breathing as a whole-body process. Give the mind an anchor. Don’t clamp down on the breath, don’t clamp down on the mind, because if you do, it’s going to resist and rebel. Just try to be … 
  11. Good at Thinking
     … For instance, you can keep the breath in mind. Just keep reminding yourself, “Stay with the breath. Be sensitive to the breath.” That kind of thinking is called mindfulness, and it’s very useful. You want to couple it with alertness, which is watching the breath, noticing how the breath feels. When it doesn’t feel good, you can change it. You don’t … 
  12. Artillery All Around
     … You sit here watching the breath and you think it’s just awareness with the breath, pure and simple. But the type of awareness you bring is already fabricated, and the breath itself is already fabricated. The Buddha calls the breath bodily fabrication, and, from the side of the mind, you’re bringing in verbal fabrication and mental fabrication. There are the places where … 
  13. What’s Real
     … So when you’re sitting here focusing on bodily fabrication, i.e., the breath, and you’re directing your thoughts and evaluating the breath, that’s verbal fabrication. Then there are the perceptions of the breath. How do you perceive the breath? Is it just a little bit of air coming in and out of the nose? How about thinking of the body as … 
  14. Doing
     … You’ve got the form of the breath, which shapes your sense of the body. You’ve got the feelings that go with the breath, and we’re trying to give rise to comfortable ones. How much can you play with the breath? How much influence do you have on the breath? How much does the breath lie under your control? In the beginning … 
  15. 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 … 
  16. At Home with the Breath
     … But if you think of all the different breath energy channels in the body getting connected so that as soon as the breath comes in, the whole body is flooded with comfortable energy, then you find the breath gets more and more calm. At the same time, it’s refreshing. You’re not starving yourself of breath energy. You don’t want to squeeze … 
  17. Concentration: A Balancing Act
     … where your mind is, how it relates to the body, how it relates to the breath. Look into the perceptions you’re using to visualize the breath to yourself. You can play with those perceptions; you can play with the breath. See what happens. That way, in exploring, you’re present here with the body and the breath in a way that’s not … 
  18. Eeeels
     … The analogy has to do with the breath. You want to make the breath comfortable, to give the mind something it likes. If your mind likes dead dogs, give it a dead dog. If it likes comfortable breath, give it a comfortable breath. Pay close attention to how the breathing feels. It’s really a shame how we let the breathing process go to … 
  19. The Fetter of Perceptions
    When I first went to stay with the Ajaan Fuang and read Ajaan Lee’s instructions on the breath energy going through the nerves, around the muscles of the body, and through the different organs of the torso, I didn’t realize it, but part of me thought of it as kind of make-believe. Until one day I was sitting, meditating and noticed … 
  20. What We’re Here to See
     … This is why we bring it to the breath. The task at hand now is to develop concentration around the breath, or if you don’t like the word concentration, just think of the mind being centered in the breath, dwelling in the breath Notice when you breathe in where it’s clearest. Focus your attention there and try to keep it there. The … 
  21. Skills to Make a Difference
     … You learn how to vary your offerings. ** So as you’re sitting here meditating, focusing on the breath, notice what kind of breathing you like. And remember that the breathing you like right now may not be the breathing you’ll like in five minutes, so keep on top of it. Another image the Buddha gives is of an archer who’s able to … 
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